Microbial tracking during plant growth using fluorescence reporter strains

This work will develop a microbial seed coating technique used to apply plant beneficial and human beneficial microbes to space crops. This goal will be accomplished using fluorescently labeled microbial strains to allow for microbial enumeration and visual documentation of retention on the host plant. The microbes used in this study will be both plant growth promoting and plant pathogen inhibitors. We will also assess commercially available food grade probiotics known for their benefit to the human gut for their added plant beneficial traits. Our work will establish and validate the best practices for microbial seed coatings to ensure food safety in closed-environment plant growth systems.

Our one-year project will first demonstrate the retention of bacteria on the plant after seed film application, visualize this retention and colonization throughout the plant, provide a mechanism of action for this retention, and ultimately deliver a well-defined approach to dosing crops with beneficial microbial consortia using seed coating. The current commercial state of the art for a similar technology is the microbial seed coating provided by the company, Indigo Agriculture, which uses a proprietary mixture of beneficial microbes whose constituents are appropriate for open field agriculture but may not be suited for closed environment agriculture. The prior technology did not use the pullulan substrate or the microbial strains that we are using to target fungal growth inhibition. None of the existing available seed coat technologies, that we are aware of, use probiotic strains that are human gut beneficial.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 5) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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