8:30 am Morning Coffee
Exploring the Regulatory Landscape
9:00 am Navigating the Regulatory Landscape to Commercialization
Synopsis
• Key regulatory triggers for microbiome products under federal pesticide law
• Recent trends in EPA regulation of agricultural products
• Practice Pointers to achieve product commercialization
9:30 am Evolving Biostimulant Global Regulatory Landscape
Synopsis
• Regulatory landscape for biostimulants in North America, EU, Brazil, Argentina, India and Australia
• Discussing policy updates
• Understanding regulatory challenges
10:00 am Understanding the Regulatory Considerations to Assist Product Development – Panel Discussion
Synopsis
• What are the product performance criteria and acceptance criteria?
• What claims can you make with your product? How do you balance innovation and strictness?
10:30 am Speed Networking
Utilizing Microbes for Improved Soil Health
11:30 am The Living Soil: How Microbes Contribute to Soil Health
Synopsis
• Healthy soils are replete with a diverse and complex microbiome
• Soil microorganisms play an important role in nutrient cycling, aggregate stability, water infiltration, and carbon sequestration
• Traditional agricultural practices can deplete soil microbe communities, reducing soil fertility, and limiting agricultural production
12:00 pm Building a Functional Soil Metagenome to Impact Soil Health, Environmental Benefits & Crop Productivity
Synopsis
• Complexity is good: A fully functional soil metagenome is important to fully functional soil health
• Diversity matters: Fungal to bacterial genome prevalence drives more productive soils
• No brown soil: Regenerative agricultural practices such as no-till and cover crops are essential to building and maintaining a functional soil
metagenome
Learning the Different Approaches to Harness Microbes to Fix Nitrogen
1:30 pm N-Fix®: A plant growth promoting biofertilizer with consistent performance in the field
2:00 pm Redesigning Biological Nitrogen Fixation in Cereal Crops
Synopsis
• Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) by plant-associated microbes can provide a sustainable and efficient source of nitrogen for crop plants;
however, high levels of nitrogen fertilizer in agricultural soils has resulted in the repression of BNF
• Pivot Bio have remodelled the regulatory nodes that repress nitrogen fixation to restore BNF in root-associated diazotrophs
• Fine-tuning the genetic regulation of BNF has resulted in strains able to fix nitrogen to cereal crops under fertilized conditions
2:30 pm Nitrogen Fixation & Biostimulation Utilizing Microorganisms
Synopsis
• Microbial selection
• Performance criteria, stability and delivery
• Field trial data generation and analysis
3:00 pm Exhibition Break
3:30 pm At the Tip of the SPEAR® – Peptides Transforming Crop Protection
Synopsis
History of the development of SPEAR®. Experience in early commercialization. Pipeline of analogously transformative products.
4:00 pm Beneficial nematodes: A sustainable alternative to control insect pests
Synopsis
• What are beneficial nematodes?
• What are their mode of action?
• What future opportunities are there?