Technology Partnership of Nagoya University, Inc.
World Class Research Contributing to Society
Dr. Mallory Choudoir
Assistant Professor & Soil Microbiome Extension Specialist
Department of Plant and Microbial Biology,
North Carolina State University
BIO.
Dr. Choudoir earned her PhD from Cornell University where she investigated biogeography of the soil bacteria Streptomyces. In addition to postdoctoral research positions at University of Colorado Boulder and University of Massachusetts Amherst, she was an industry scientist at Indigo Ag (Boston, MA) where she developed beneficial microbial seed treatments. She began her position as an Assistant Professor and Soil Microbiome Extension Specialist at NC State in 2022. The current goals of her program are to evaluate the efficacy and ecological impact of microbial biostimulants and to develop microbiome-centered solutions for meeting agronomic challenges.
Evaluating the efficacy and ecological impact of microbial biostimulants
Microbes are critical for crop health. Given the abundant and ecologically diverse plant-growth-promoting activities of microbes, microbial biostimulants are an exciting and rapidly expanding class of agronomic products. However, field performance varies significantly, and local data is often lacking. This ultimately hinders farmer adoption and product utility. I will discuss the results of a multi-year program evaluating field efficacy and ecological impact of microbial seed treatments on soybean production in North Carolina. We conduct small plot field trials across NC’s soybean production regions and leverage these results on-farm trials. In addition to plant metrics and soil nutrient data, we also collect soil and rhizosphere microbiome data. One way to improve scalability is to better understand the potential interactions between microbial biostimulants and native soil microbes.
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