Doug Kremer – President Mike Kelly – Director Turf Operations · Doug Kremer – President Mike Kelly – Director Turf Operations “Maximizing Earth’s Potential” Company

“Maximizing Earth’s Potential”

Doug Kremer – President Mike Kelly – Director Turf Operations


Company Background

•  Founded in 1998 to develop microbiological products - Integrated Fertility Management™ (IFM) •  Convert atmospheric nitrogen to plant usable forms •  Stimulates root growth and increases yields

•  Released first “defined” microbial products in 2000 •  Azospirillum based – Agriculture and Turf •  Rhizobium based - Agriculture


Biological Nitrogen Fixation


The Rhizosphere

•  Classified as the zone of soil under the influence of plant roots

•  Due to low available carbon, the natural state of microbes in soil is starvation. In the rhizosphere, plants give off a variety of organic substances that facilitate microbial growth

•  In return, the microbes provide a number of services for the plant: –  Production of plant growth hormones –  Solubilization of inorganic minerals –  Protection from plant pathogens


The Rhizosphere


Effects of the microbial community on plant growth Beneficial Harmful

Soil Stabilization Disease Water Uptake Nutrient Competition

Growth Promotion Microbial Competition

Nitrogen Fixation

Biocontrol

Nutrient Availability Adapted from Maier 2004


Where Does Nitrogen Come From?


Nitrogen Cycle


Type of fixation N2 fixed (106 metric tons per year)

Non-biological

Industrial (Haber – Bosch Process) about 50

Combustion about 20

Lightning about 10

Total about 80

Biological

Agricultural land about 90

Forest and non-agricultural land about 50

Sea about 35

Total about 175

Data from various sources, compiled by DF Bezdicek & AC Kennedy, in Microorganisms in Action (eds. JM Lynch & JE Hobbie). Blackwell Scientific Publications 1998.

Sources of Nitrogen


Microorganisms have a central role in almost all aspects of nitrogen availability and thus for life

support on earth:

•  some bacteria can convert N2 into ammonia by the process termed nitrogen fixation; these bacteria are either free-living or form symbiotic associations with plants or other organisms (e.g. termites, protozoa) –  other bacteria bring about transformations of ammonia to

nitrate, and of nitrate to N2 or other nitrogen gases

•  many bacteria and fungi degrade organic matter, releasing fixed nitrogen for reuse by other organisms.

•  All these processes contribute to the nitrogen cycle.


Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF)

BNF occurs when atmospheric nitrogen is converted to ammonia by a pair of bacterial enzymes called nitrogenase. The simplified formula for BNF is:

Air (78% N2, 20% O2) + Protons + electrons + Energy gives Ammonia

N2 (from air) + 8H+ + 8e− + 16 ATP → 2NH3 + H2 + 16ADP + 16 P


Examples of nitrogen-fixing bacteria

– Free Living •  Azotobacter

– Associated •  Azospirillum

– Symbiotic •  Bradyrhizobium

– Endosymbiotic •  Herbaspirillum •  Acetobacter •  Burkholderi


Symbiotic interaction

Nodules from bacterial and plant interaction


RH = Root Hair, RS = Root Surface, B = Unattached Azospirillum Bacteria B

Associative Interaction


Azospirillum

•  Fixes Nitrogen for use by cereal crops, grasses and tuber plants


Azospirillum

•  Bacteria

•  Found on many plant species

•  Close to the roots (Rhizoplane) and attached to the roots

•  Not a nodulater


History •  The first species of the genus, originally named

Spirillum lipoferum, was isolated from soil in the Netherlands in 1925. Forgotten for half a century, Azospirillum was 'rediscovered' in the 1970s during a search for associative nitrogen fixers in the rhizosphere of Digitaria and Zea mays in Brazil. Since then, isolation of azospirilla from roots of numerous wild and cultivated plants and from different soil types has been reported from all over the world.


Azospirillum Colonization

•  The first step (the adsorption step), consists of a rapid, loose, and reversible binding of Azospirillum to the root.

•  The second step (the anchoring phase), the bacteria become irreversibly bound to the root surface.


Azospirillum and root interaction, E = Zone of elongation, RH = Root Hairs


Bacterial Attachment

B

B

RS = Root Surface

B = Attached Azospirillum Bacteria


Bacterial Attachment

B

RH = Root Hair, RS = Root Surface, B = Attached Azospirillum Bacteria

B B


Azospirillum Case Studies

•  TAZO®

– University Nebraska Lincoln (Data slides to come)

– University Wisconsin Madison –  Iowa State University


Case Histories

•  Photos and testimonials of sports field users to be inserted if permitted

Doug Kremer – President Mike Kelly – Director Turf Operations · Doug Kremer – President Mike Kelly – Director Turf Operations “Maximizing Earth’s Potential” Company

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