New Edge sees wheat yield success fermenting in microbial revolution

Seed inoculants are not new technology, but New Edge Microbials boss, Ben Barlow, expects their influence in an increasingly cost and carbon conscious world will open new frontiers for yield and environmental advances in farming.

Symbiotic relationships between soil microflora and plant root systems already enable legume croppers to cut nitrogen fertiliser use by up to 30 per cent when inoculating seed in a slurry of rhizobia-rich microbes to promote extra nitrogen fixation under the plant.

Now Australia is on the cusp of achieving similar gains from its vast 20 million hectares of wheat and canola plantings.

By employing biological seed coatings to help plants resist unfriendly soil pathogens and enhance seedling establishment traits there are promising options to boost yields and dry season crop resilience.

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The new generation of locally grown plant-friendly soil bacteria treatments will also promote soil carbon absorption and enable farmers to reduce fertiliser and chemical applications - cutting their own input costs while meeting consumer calls for more nature-focused farm production systems.

Similar cereal fertiliser breakthroughs already exist in the northern hemisphere, but on the NSW-Victorian border at Albury New Edge will next year release its own initial treatments for cereals and oilseeds developed from Australian soil microbiome.

Its abiotic stress resilient biologicals have produced trial yield gains 20 to 40 per cent higher than untreated plantings where rainfall has been 40pc below average."

"Average rainfall in Australian cropping districts has declined for 50 years and the outlook is getting far less reliable," said managing director, Mr Barlow.

"I think this sort of bio-stimulant will help yield consistency, particularly in drier areas where big hectares are planted - west of the Newell Highway in NSW, south western Queensland, northern South Australia and West Australia."

Using soil bacteria collected from lower rainfall environments, New Edge Microbials has selected and fermented seed coating formulations which promote early root structure, moisture seeking capabilities and plant hardiness in warmer, drier crop conditions.

NEM has exploited similar bacteria and symbiotic traits to promote nutrient absorption capabilities and faster foliage establishment during a crop's first eight weeks, crowding out weed competition and optimising grain development.

"If you're lucky you may only get below average rainfall for two years in every five, however an outlay of $15 a hectare for an abiotic stress treatment offers an extra good return when those bad seasons do hit," Mr Barlow said.

The one-time National Australia Bank agribusiness banker, who teamed with a few other investor supporters in 2018 to buy a majority stake in the Montague family's NEM business, said farmers everywhere were showing curiosity about how to utilise more natural potential in their soils.

Globally the market for biological products was compounding at 15pc a year and tipped to be worth about $38 billion by 2025.

Soaring crop input costs and regulatory pressures were encouraging the adoption of biological seed treatment and fertiliser products and reduced reliance on synthetic fertilisers and chemicals, where possible.

He said in five years European agriculture alone had moved from using about 10pc biological products and 90pc synthetic chemicals and fertilisers, to about 40 biological.

The EU had 190 new agricultural biological registrations pending compared with just three for fresh synthetic chemistry product registrations.

Mr Barlow noted a tonne of nitrogen (urea) was not just expensive for farmers to buy, but required about 10t of carbon dioxide to make, and at least half of an average cropper's nitrogen fertiliser application was invariably lost to the atmosphere or runoff.

Even if costs and soil health practicalities were not enough to push Australian agriculture to catch up with a decade of biological advances in Europe, North America and even New Zealand, community scrutiny would.

"The European Union has mandated 50pc cuts to synthetic fertiliser and farm chemical applications by 2030, Canada has also mandated a 30pc cut in nitrogen fertiliser use, and businesses everywhere are talking about their ESG responsibilities on emissions and production sustainability," Mr Barlow said.

Australian farmers risked waking up too late to find our farm carbon and chemical footprints way ahead of our export rivals and overseas market expectations.

New Edge was also scheduled to release seed inoculant and related products to promote carbon sequestration by about 2025.

"If your products can draw in enough carbon from the atmosphere and store it in a cropping rotation, the value may be similar to the crop you're harvesting," he said.

The fast changing world of biological opportunities in agriculture has been something of a windfall for Mr Barlow, whose career has been punctuated by several well timed, profitable learning experiences.

His banking years, which coincided with buying grazing property in the western Riverina, included an agribusiness leadership stint with NAB's subsidiary Great Western Bank, then after returning to Australia to develop the farming business into a 32,000ha aggregation, an opportunity to sell to Macquarie Bank's Paraway Pastoral.

That sale subsequently helped fund his move into New Edge Microbials.

NEM, founded by microbiologist, Sandy Montague, to service the emerging local inoculant market for pulse crops, currently supplies treatments to about 45pc of the domestic legume crop and has Australia's biggest biological fermentation capability making biofertilisers and pest control products.

The business also uses microbes to "eat" agricultural, aquacultural and industrial waste, including developing powerful new natural products to break down industrial soil contaminants.

Since Mr Barlow came on board, the company has added exports to the US, Europe, New Zealand and Latin America and almost tripled its turnover.

NEM's payroll has grown from 12 to 60, including overseas specialist talent employed to help upscale production and do research and discovery work on its accumulated portfolio of beneficial soil bugs.

New Edge has acquired exclusive access to about 40 years of soil bacteria research and samples collected by CSIRO and several Australian universities which now receive royalties from the company's biostimulant and fertiliser sales.

NEM is also working with the medical sector developers of artificial skin technology on a product to keep its treated seed in a ready-to-use state for up to three months - way longer than the current two week use by date for inoculant treatments.

"Biologicals are an old science, but have so many new frontiers to explore and provide high impact outcomes with a low impact on the environment."

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