"If you build a beneficial microbiome early on in the system, then it'll flourish"
Source: VFD.com
Turning the root zone from a blind spot into a data source "If you build a beneficial microbiome early on in the system, then it'll flourish" As greenhouse production becomes increasingly data-driven, Ubix Bio is focusing on an area that can remain difficult to monitor: the microbiology of the root zone. The company was formed in June through the merger of two University of Waterloo spin-offs: Earth Microbial, which developed bacterial biostimulants, and Healthy Hydroponics, a privately funded laboratory focused on diagnostics and grower testing.
"We're really taking more of a grower-focused approach and working with them on providing solutions for the microbiome of the crop." He identifies the root zone as a remaining gap in greenhouse data collection. And that unfortunately leaves the root zone as a blind spot." © Ubix Bio Delaney Nash (PhD), Director of Research and Innovation (left), and Skirma Dab (MSc), Account Executive of Agriculture (right) at Ubix Bio Quantifying disease pressure Ubix Bio uses quantitative PCR (qPCR) testing to measure pathogen levels rather than simply establishing whether a pathogen is present.
It helps growers understand how clean the water going into their system is before they even have any problems." Strain identification and sequencing provide another layer of information, including investigations of pathogens such as tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV), for which resistance-breaking strains are suspected. "What we're able to do with our diagnostics is take a sample of the root zone and say, OK, you have this amount of Bacillus, or you have this amount of Trichoderma." Tracking these populations over time can show whether an applied microbial is becoming established or simply leaving the system through drainage.
Why this matters: For operators, this is a water-management story. The useful signal is that direct substrate measurements can help cut drain loss materially without giving up yield or fruit quality, which is exactly the kind of controllable efficiency gain a facility can build on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does substrate sensing matter in free-drain strawberry systems?
Because drain percentage tells a grower what already happened, while substrate moisture and EC data show root-zone conditions directly. That makes it easier to cut water loss without guessing.
What is the operator takeaway from this trial?
If the thresholds are understood well enough, growers can reduce drain water materially while protecting yield and fruit quality, which makes sensing an operational tool instead of a reporting tool.
