Water is a precious resource, and the demand for water-efficient crops continues to grow.
A Boston-based company has developed a new microbial seed coating, Indigo Cotton, to address this issue and increase the water use efficiency of cotton plants.
“The future of West Texas agriculture depends on finding ways to get more agriculture productivity from less water,” Indigo President and CEO David Perry said.
Texas grows more than six million acres of cotton every year and most of that is grown in West Texas where conditions are dry. Much of the irrigation used to grow the crop in this region is from the Ogallala Aquifer, according to Indigo Agriculture. The Ogallala water level has dropped due to several consecutive years of drought and a high demand for water.
With population and weather volatility increasing, companies like Indigo are investing in innovations that make crops more tolerant to various climate conditions and help improve water efficiency.
The company has been working with farmers in Texas and four other states to conduct trials with the product. They have shown 10 percent or greater yield increases under targeted stress conditions.
“Indigo Cotton is a fungus that we’re working with that helps the plant grow better under stress conditions,” Indigo representative Barry Knight said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “Presently, we have our product on about 50,000 acres in cooperation with our partner Americot. So farmers across Texas and the mid-south are getting to look at it this summer.”
The innovative new product was developed from the cotton fields of Texas during the historic drought of 2011, Knight said.
“We went into the fields in that drought year and we looked for cotton plants that were doing well and surviving well,” said Knight. “We made collections of those plants to see what microorganisms were in there and if they were doing good things. Then we took those microorganisms and reintroduced them to all the cotton seeds that were in the fields.”
Indigo Cotton is designed to work in both drought and normal conditions.
The successful trials have shown early indications of marked differences in root and stem development and overall plant health that have the potential for significant impact at commercial scale, according to an Indigo news release. The results also showed yield increases in both dryland and irrigated cotton.
Indigo has partnered with seed distributors in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas to coat and then pass back the seed for them to sell.