Soil Microbiome Testing: What Trace Genomics Can Tell You About Your Soil

0:50 Okay well thanks everybody for joining us this evening. This is the third webinar in our series that we call season two. We're very excited to have some special guests with us this evening. I will introduce them in here just in a second but just a few house cleaning things first. Of all, we are recording this, so it will be available if you want to watch it again or want to share it with others who may need to see this. We'll have it on our YouTube page. Also just a reminder that next week we will be having Nick Jorgensen with Jorgensen Angus out of Ideal South Dakota and he's going to be talking about the economics of cover crops, specifically grazing cover crops. I think that's going to be a very practical webinar for some of you as well.

1:39 So our guests this evening are Poornima Paramaswaram and John Janssen with Trace Genomics. This is a little bit of a departure from some of the webinars that we've had that have been very, I would call, more scientific or more presentation type. This is gonna hopefully flow back and forth a little bit more like an interview, a conversation because I'm excited about what Trace Genomics is bringing to the marketplace, the different testing options that they have. And so we thought that what they're doing is unique enough and I feel like a lot of people probably aren't even aware of what they do. So we just wanted to bring that in front of our base and let them share a little bit about what they're doing.

2:32 So I think let's go ahead and get started. Poornima, why don't you tell us just a little bit because Poornima is the founder, one of the co-founders of Trace Genomics. So I'm gonna let her just give a little bit of background about how she came about. Now Purnima, I know that you kind of started this back in 2015, 2016. You were awarded, kind of had some awards in those early years as one of the most promising ag startups. I know just last year I think you were a Food Shop winner, which is kind of a big deal for the soil microbiome test. So I don't want to give too much away but share a little bit of your background and how you came to found the company.

3:20 We'll do. Keith, really excited to be here. Thanks for having us as part of your podcast series. Yeah, the story of Trace Genomics begins probably not in 2015 but in 2004 to 2006, which is when DNA sequencing really started blooming and one of the main reasons that was happening is there's a lot of technological advancements that allowed for sequencing to be offered at a scale that was never available before and also the price tag that made it more accessible for customers, for consumers, to really use this information to make decisions. So that journey kind of began in 2005, 2006 when DNA sequencing started popping up in the marketplace.

4:12 And since then I was a graduate student at Stanford and my co-founder joined Stanford in 2009 and both of us watched how sequencing completely changed the landscape of personalized medicine, you know in human medicine. Now using sequencing and genomics, the DNA information is powering personalized chemotherapies, personalized immunotherapies, personalized therapies for all of these different diseases, genetic rare diseases, etc., at a pace that has never been seen before. And so really watching this change, personalized medicine, our passions were really about how do you make DNA information actionable for consumers. And when you look at the landscape there's human and then there's environmental, right. And in that environmental landscape, microbes are everywhere. So when you're talking about DNA it's typically the microbiome or the DNA of microbes that are there in the environment that you're talking about.

5:13 And what we heard as we were doing our research in this space, this was about 2010 to 2011 by now, what we really heard the biggest ask was from farmers and their biggest concerns, this was mostly in California because that's really where we started the company back in 2015. The biggest ask was from farmers who were seeing regulations, increasing regulations around the usage of crop protection chemicals, particularly methyl bromide going away, and they wanted the ability to understand what was in their soil so that they could understand their disease risks and use this information to make better planting decisions, especially in a world where methyl bromide was no longer an option and you were seeing all of these subpar crop.

6:04 Protection chemicals on the market to help them fight soil-borne diseases. So we started the company in 2015 really with this intent to provide farmers starting with strawberries and lettuce growers help them understand what is in their soil from a disease perspective so that they can make the right decisions before they plant. And the disease decisions are really around what DNA is in the soil, what are the pathogens or the disease causing microbes in the soil. So we set up a lab where we work all along and we'll tell you a little bit more about our process later, but essentially we received soil samples and we looked at the DNA sequences we set up all of these algorithms in the cloud, another technological advancement that's made this possible really the cloud computational infrastructure that allows us to process all of this data in a matter of minutes as opposed to months and years, you know if you look at it a decade ago. So that computational capability along with the ability to process samples allowed us to help deliver disease risk profiles in a crop specific manner to farmers in California.

7:13 And then building on that really we've expanded to include more than a several dozen different crops. We now offer full pathogen panels for soil for several dozen crops, and we have also based off of what we have heard from customers also now have the ability to help them understand the beneficial microorganisms in the soil, the beneficial microorganisms that are important for making nutrients more available to plants for plant health for plant vigor for yield and for suppression of disease. For carbon sequestration rates there's a lot of areas where beneficial microbes really play a role and we are helping our customers understand what's in the soil there. And the last part of this, it's really exciting too, is we acquired the assets of Solemn from Linfield United. We put up, this is all public information, but we now have the ability to stack chemistry with biology indicators to offer a more comprehensive view of what's in the soil for our customers today.

8:22 Sorry I had myself muted there. So that's really fascinating so you're using this super high level medical grade DNA sequencing and taking a peek in the soil. And I think most of our viewers would understand how incredibly complex that soil biome probably is. And you know it's staggering to me to think about trying to get a DNA sequence of what's in there. So I'm excited to see I know you've got some slides and stuff that you want to show that'll probably help us get a little bit better feel for what you just said and what you're doing because that's pretty high level stuff. So that's great. And I really like how you started with trying to detect the diseases but you've moved now to trying to identify the good guys if you will that are in there. And seeing how they're working and how they're suppressing those diseases and making those nutrients more available. To me that's the really exciting part because then we can get away from some of these chemicals and get you know try to create a soil environment that the pathogens aren't the dominant species out there and even though they're probably out there yet they don't express themselves in the crop.

9:39 So John, why don't you give just a little bit about your background because you did not start with Trace but you've come on tell just a little bit about your role and about your background please. Yeah Keith, great to be with you. I'm a native of Southeast Iowa and have spent over 25 years helping launch and bring out new technologies in agriculture. I joined Pornema and the Trace team just this past summer and I lead our commercial operations right here out of St. Louis and have our field agronomy team that works with retail agronomy as well as farming operations to help interpret these results. We're a diagnostics company but we really deliver insights so we're a pretty high touch soils lab so to speak. You don't just get the test result, you usually get some really good interface from our science team there that Pornema highlighted as well as our agronomists that help you interpret those results and know how to take action.

10:42 Yeah that's really good because I've seen some of the results that you show and without an interpreter it would be difficult to know what all that data means because you know data is great but if you don't understand it and you don't know what to do with it then it's just more data and you just kind of get lost in the mess of that. So I'm excited to see some of the slides what you want to go ahead and.

11:06 Bring up a couple of your first slides there just to illustrate some of these points, John.

11:11 I sure will Keith. Let me know when you can see this, okay. Yep, I can see the slide deck all right. We're prepared just a little bit of an overview for you. You know, we call it unlocking the power of soil, truly believing one of our greatest opportunities to not only be more thoughtful about inputs that are utilized in crop production, but how we really improve soil health. There's just a tremendous amount of synergy there.

11:35 You know, why trace genomics like Poornima just highlighted. These are some really new indicators that provide you access as farmers and agronomists to the most advanced soil diagnostics to improve your soil health. And so a lot of us are accustomed to taking a routine soil test for macro and micronutrients, maybe as you rotate into a crop for a pH lime adjustment, a PRK rate map.

12:02 As Poornima mentioned, we're stacking these new biological indicators on top of a very high quality foundation of soil chemistry testing. And so this slide really highlights you know fertility, diseases, beneficials. You've got your standard nutrient management, macros and micros that we'd all recognize from a standard soil test. But Poornima's science team has been able to identify at the gene level in a standard soil test these major diseases and nutrient indicators that can help farmers and agronomists know what disease levels are present in the soil and then make better decisions on how to manage that.

12:43 I like to break it down. You know, the feature of this technology is really Trace Genomics offering you the broadest spectrum of these soil biological indicators for nutrients and disease. That's made possible by that sequencing evolution that Poornima just spoke to. The advantage is we put this in a digital web engine that is a farmer and agronomist. Takes all those gene indicators and really helps you focus on the one or two that are the most actionable.

13:16 And the benefit then is you can make better treatment decisions for seed treatments, soil treatments, crop treatments. Not use products that aren't needed, but really target the products that are needed to help improve your soil health, help you get more out of every acre, help improve your return on investment.

13:41 And so with that is a little bit of an intro, Keith. One thing we might do is we brought a little video along that I think you have access to on your end that we could share with the audience that really brings us to life a little bit.

13:58 Yep, let me share that here.

14:18 Do you know what's limiting yield potential and are you showcasing your hybrids and varieties on the best acres? It's kind of like the ocean. We know that there's a lot of stuff out there, we just don't know what.

14:36 The success of your seed recommendations depends on understanding the living soil beneath your feet, and that requires DNA analysis. Traditional soil tests only look at chemistry, but knowing the biology is the advantage that helps you get the most out of every acre.

14:54 For the first time, growers have the most advanced soil analytics in the world through Trace Genomics, helping you improve product placement and characterize your field trial sites. The Trace Genomic soil engine offers the broadest spectrum of biological indicators through DNA analysis by the most accurate chemistry lab, helping you target what matters most and maximizing your ROI on soil and crop treatments.

15:22 It's simple and cost effective. Acre by acre, growers and agronomists use Trace Genomics DNA analytics to enable informed, data-driven product placement. It's about unlocking the full potential of each scene by knowing the living soil creates so much ability to be able to identify the diseases present in the soil. I really think that's going to be a game changer.

15:56 Okay, yeah, that was very well done. I really liked the quote where the one guy said it's kind of like the ocean, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there, but you don't really know what's in it until you start looking. The other thing the comment that I'll make is boy, some of those California soils are beat up and they need all the help that they can get, don't they? They just look like they're farming the moon there in places.

16:24 Yeah, what do you have any follow-ups with the video there, John or Poornima, about some of the points that were made there that maybe you want to illustrate?

16:33 Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I'll go back and share my screen so Poornima can dive a bit more into the technology and explain a bit more about how this really works in our process.

16:44 Poornima, yeah, that ocean comment and it's not a surprise to me that it.

16:52 I think there's also several statements that have been made around how we know so much more about the deepest, darkest depths of our oceans and we know about our soils underfoot. Right, the same thing goes where we know so much more about space than we actually know about what's in our soil. And so I mean I really see it as the last frontier in many ways for us to create value and insights from.

17:20 And you know, one of the main reasons why we founded Trace in 2015 when very few people were actually talking about soil was because we saw that there were immediate opportunity like today, not five years out, not ten years out, today in terms of being able to create and interpret on the data that is coming out of soil. So I want to make sure that you know that piece of communication is not lost. Yes, soil is an ocean. Yes, we know very little about what's in the soil today, yet of the little that we know, there are many pieces that are directly actionable that are already delivering ROI to our customers today. And a lot of it is around disease management, a lot of it is around fertility management, and these are decisions that are already being made out on the farm today. And we're building upon that knowledge over time, which is what makes what we're doing so exciting as well in terms of opportunity gains in the future.

18:21 So when we think about our process, you know, typically most soil labs, their experience starts. The customer's interaction really starts when they send a soil sample into the lab. Ours actually starts way before, and so we work very closely with our customers to ensure that the type or the framework that they're using for sampling is very much in alignment with one, the data that we're creating, two, the data that we're interpreting for them, and three, how they're taking actions based off of this data. So if our customers, for example, have zone-based sampling frameworks or grid-based sampling frameworks, or they want decisions at a whole field level versus a sub-field level, or they want to manage a certain low production zone differently from a high production zone, we can accommodate all of that at scale.

19:13 So we start with the sampling design process. Sample comes into our lab, we have multiple product portfolios or it's a very diversified portfolio where we run a set of full chemistry analysis on these samples. We do full set microbiome-based analysis, and this is something that John will talk about more to later, which is we are constantly innovating and developing additional capabilities at Trace. And one of the capabilities that we are that is under development, very active development, is really around targeted assays and targeted panels for very specific crops and specific sets of diseases that are important to our customers. So all of these three different panels can are being run on every sample that comes in. Data goes into the cloud, we have algorithms that really allow us to understand who is there in the soil, what quantities are they, and what functions are they doing in the soil. And that data then goes out into our web portal, and it's a very interactive map-based view. We have a snapshot of this later too, but essentially something that allows our customers to understand by field or by disease risk indicator or by fertility indicator, you know, what are the jobs to be done, like what are the fields that they need to be paying attention to, and what actions they need to take based off of our data.

20:37 This is just an overview of the data that comes out. John mentioned this earlier, you know, at Ames, Iowa we have best-in-class QC processes in place for chemistry and biology from every single soil sample that comes in. We are creating millions of data points and millions of DNA sequences. And so we have very robust QC processing in place, and this is just a snapshot of what a dashboard looks like in our lab. We are, this access is actually millions, and this is just like one set of 96 samples, and this shows you what the distribution of reads looks like across those 96 samples. Because we do everything at scale, we do it in batches of 96 or 384, we create millions of data points, and yet we have the ability within a matter of minutes to distill all of that information down into a manageable set of soil indicators. And we're even bending that and surfacing it to our customer by crop. We have the ability to identify emerging diseases as in some cases we have actually gone out and sequenced a pathogen for which a genome wasn't available before, added it to our database and

21:50 Rolled out the first incoming personal class commercial diagnostic for an emerging disease. We've done this with lettuce and involved we have the capability to do this for other diseases moving forward. In fact we're already doing it for other diseases that are impacting cotton as well as corn and soy that our customers are telling us that they have a need for.

22:10 Because we have been in business for over five years and we have worked across so many different crops and we have worked all over the US. You know we're not just in California we actually have soil samples from all major farming hubs in the US with very deep knowledge base around multiple crops, all crops are our highest economic impact in the US as well as several geographies here.

22:33 We touched on this already our report is very comprehensive with a whole set of indicators around what are the beneficials in your soil that allow your crop to be healthy to actually get nutrients out of the soil and in a format that's available to the plant. That particular functionality is being conferred by microorganisms in the soil and we actually measure that function that rate in the soil. We also have soil chemistry reports that are best in class with almost 20 different indicators including pH organic matter, all the different types of floss. We have three different ways in which we measure phosphorus alone as well as all the macros and micros and then on top of that the soil pathogen panels by crop is something that we offer to all our customers.

23:24 John you want to talk about the product in the commercial? Our trace genomic soils web engine then digitizes all of those attributes that Poornima just highlighted and puts it in an easy to use web interface. And so what you're seeing here is that web interface you'll recognize some farm fields here on the left. You've got menus and you've got the ability to toggle through your fields across your farm operation or even multiple operations linked together. Look at those disease pathogens which are indicated here on this display. You've also got your soil nutrient cycle indicators as well as those standard chemistry results.

24:08 And the web is designed so that you can click on a field you see it's very visual with a stoplight type of signal here where green means for that particular attribute like here we're looking at sudden death syndrome and soybean. These green fields were not detecting high levels when compared to other fields in similar environments based on our vast database of soil test results versus the yellow and the red. Here we're identifying sample points within these fields that would be recommended for further inspection. We're really not a black box that recommends a specific product treatment. You can see at the bottom we're actually reporting the soil concentration levels of these different pathogens and nutrient cycle indicators so that you as a farmer and agronomist can interpret those benchmarks and make treatment decisions based on those.

25:07 I promise this next slide we won't have any quizzes on afterwards but we did want to give you the detail on the scientific and common names of all of those indicators. This just happens to be for corn wheat soybean and potato on that digital web engine I just showed you. We actually have 71 different crops. Many of the scientific names are common across the US and we adapt those common names to the disease and treatments that you'll recognize and then we also have those biological fertility indicators rendered in the software.

25:48 Our software is built so that these results can be ingested into other farm management software programs that you and your agronomists use. We have little bits of software code called APIs that can transmit those results digitally and make it easy to exchange those results back and forth because we know most of us don't need yet one more piece of software and user ID and password and so we do get into the software a bit just for the sake of reporting our results and doing some very specific analytics like Poornima mentioned depending on our customer and what their goal is. But you know we very much have an open architecture here that works with the software systems that you're accustomed to.

26:34 Poornima our pipeline is actually to get even more focused on these indicators you want to comment on what's coming next? Yeah and this is really where there's a lot of innovation also happening at Trace. We have the ability to surface all of these indicators except

26:53 With our microbiome-based panel offering, we are also in the process of developing very specific targeted panels for specific crops and specific value propositions that are of interest to our customers. And so this is yet another way in which we're diversifying our offerings to our customers, and it actually allows for our customers to really give some flexibility to pick and choose in terms of what types of value propositions really matter the most for their operations.

27:31 And Keith, that really is a good synopsis of our technology, how it works, and what you get with Trace Genomics. Yeah, that's a lot. That's impressive.

27:44 On this slide that you have up, I'll just go ahead and ask this question now. It says it excludes the soybean cyst nematode. Are you doing any type of nematode detection in any of these crops? I know that's a pretty big deal in potatoes and I would guess in a lot of other vegetable crops as well.

28:03 Yeah, so when we look at the DNA in the soil with our microbiome-based assay, we are able to detect DNA from nematodes no problem. And as every agronomist and nematologist will tell you, Keith, it's really all about the sampling. Where are you sampling from? What is that resolution look like? How are you compositing all of the samples? And what is that nature of the sample that comes into our lab? And really being able to use that for diagnostics of nematodes is a whole different set of parameters than using it for fungal and bacterial disease or beneficial detection. So that's really where when we put a diagnostic out onto the marketplace, we do a lot of science validation. We spend a lot of time and effort in making sure that the indicators are validated. And that's where with nematodes in particular, making sure that if there is alignment about how the sampling happens out in the field, yes, our platform can detect it. But taking it one step forward to this diagnostic at a sensitivity that is needed for our customers to make decisions, that's really where the targeted panel will offer the most value.

29:22 So I know there's a question that popped up in the Q&A. How quickly—so first of all, tell us a little bit about how you recommend your customers take these samples. You know, how do they do that soil probing and testing, and then how quickly does it need to get to the lab in order for all that biology to still be viable?

29:45 Purnima, I'll start us off with just a couple examples here. This I call example A works for a full diagnostic assessment of a field, and here you've got a zone-based field on the left of sampling and a grid-based field on the right, two and a half acre grid, a very common resolution. And so those biological indicators really can be stacked on top of a normal chemistry test, a soil core that is pulled by zone where maybe six to twelve subsamples are taken, blended into a composite. This is a corn field where you've got three different zones of a high-yield environment, medium and low-yield environment. And we're very accustomed to working with this standard approach where the zones are blended. We run the chemistry. We're pretty proud of our chemistry turnaround. We know that's pretty time critical, especially when you're maybe in a narrow window in the fall and spring and need to get those P and K and lime recommendations made. The DNA analysis typically takes between three and four weeks, and so there's quite a bit of additional preparation required there. And so we report out the chemistry results immediately in our web engine, and then we update those biological indicators as they become available.

31:05 And so these are two examples of what we have many current customers doing today, where they will analyze for 210 dollars a zone, and we recommend that you know we'll turn those results around with the exact same zone sampling approach that you would be accustomed to. And on the right, on the grid perspective, much higher resolution here at two and a half acre grids. You know, we have the ability to dial in the resolution on the biology as needed. We can do a few sample points. In this example, we're providing the biology every 20 acres, or roughly every eight samples. And so what you end up with is a good high-density chemistry resolution and then that biology at a resolution that you can actually take action on because you don't need to do it on every single grid. Another approach is a little bit more targeted. And so in this example B, this is targeted field-level testing. I've got three fields here that you can tell visually from left to right get a little bit more defined with more zones.

32:14 Approaches if you want to try to do chemistry analysis across this field on the left and the pin represents one biological sample point. That's pricing starts at $250 a field for zone-based sampling. We add a hundred dollars for each additional biological sample, just to try to make it economical to try where you're looking for maybe some spot deficiency.

32:37 There's part of a field where the soil chemistry results look good but the yield productivity just isn't there and something else is going on in the soil. You know, we recommend these two sample points being your starting point where one is in that area of spot deficiency and the other is in a higher yielding area and then we compare the pathogens and the nutrient cycle indicators to look for differences. And on the right we just display how you know you could add a third sample point there. Really simple pricing: $100 each additional sample point.

33:10 If you're doing grids we have a $250 adder to this pricing so that it's really easy and adaptable to the way that you're testing soil today. That's really the answer to your question, Keith, is just stacking these indicators right on top of the normal soil characterization work that the folks are doing.

33:32 So for the most part you would just pull soil samples like you normally would. And is there, you know, rush—you have to get it rushed to the lab, you know, quicker because it's a biological test or is that not as critical?

33:46 It's really not as critical, you know. Normal shipping times are just fine. You know, we have a lab in California in Burlingame. Now as we're ramping up our lab in Ames, Iowa, you know, we've got—we're pretty close by and so we've got the ability to handle samples from all the lower 48. We receive them every week into our labs for processing with no special handling.

34:14 Okay, well, that's good because that can sometimes be an issue if it has to be handled differently. You mentioned the lab in Ames, John, and I know when you were here visiting us at Green Cover Seed you were telling me a little bit more about that. You want to just mention a little bit about how that's expanding your capabilities and especially to the row crop guys here in the Midwest?

34:41 You know, absolutely. Well, we call it the Ames advantage. It's a combination of a team of people that has been together for nearly a decade—a very experienced team of soil scientists, statisticians, lab technicians that have worked together to invest in a tremendous amount of lab automation. So a lot of soils labs, you'll take a tour and there's a lot of manual methods implied and a lot of people doing things in the lab. We have a terrific staff here with just—I just did the stats the other day—just under 200 years of cumulative soil science experience here in soil diagnostics.

35:16 But there's a tremendous amount of lab automation, and so in these pictures if you look closely across the team here you're going to see a lot of computers and electronic automation that really takes a lot of the potential error points out of these sample processes. It results in quicker turnaround and more accurate results. We benchmark this lab against many other labs across North America to make sure the quality of known samples going into Ames is best in class.

35:48 And so this team's always up for a challenge. You'll end up talking to these people as you're working on your sampling design and the problems you're trying to solve. When Poornima mentioned, 'often our journey begins long before the sample was collected and placed in the bag,' that couldn't be more true. This is a real high-touch experience. It's to tackle the toughest problems that you can't put your finger on and it's also to just help you develop a baseline, you know, as you think about a lot of the emerging areas in agriculture like some of these environmental services around carbon or you know if you're a landowner and you want to make sure that you're maintaining good nutrient levels in the soil and maximizing productivity, you know we have a lot of customers that just want to develop a good baseline of these biological indicators right on top of the chemistry.

36:40 And so this team can adapt to that and if there's certain things that you want to analyze for, ask us and we'll, you know, we're pretty accustomed to developing new methods to identify what was on your mind to solve for.

36:59 Great. Now I know you're also telling me that most of the time a lot of the samples that come into your lab you kind of work through agronomists because they have a pretty good feel for how to sample and

42:22 20 minutes or so left for questions. I've got a number of ones written down here that I want to ask, but I would encourage all you folks that are watching out there to go ahead and submit your questions via the chat box or you can type them into the Q&A box there too, and we'll get to those as you submit them.

42:43 One of the questions that I have is, because I know that some of our listeners will be familiar with a biological test like the PLFA test, can you just talk a little bit about how this differs from that? You know, that would give people a little bit of a baseline because I think there's some familiarity with that test because it's been around for a while.

43:07 Yeah, I can definitely take that one. The way I look at a lot of the tests, whether it's PLFA, whether it's Haney, and other respiration tests out there, I really see them as being very complementary and in some ways synergistic. Yes, you know, they are providing redundant information as well. The way in which our test differs from PLFA is that with PLFA you get a profile of very specific certain compounds that are unique to different organisms, and based on the uniqueness of that profile you identify who's there in the soil. But it's more of a population-based approach. You still can't get to some of the strain specificity that you need. For example, when you look at Fusarium wilt in lettuce or even if you look at SDS in soybean, or if you look at different species of Phytophthora or different species of Pythium, you really need to be able to get to the underlying DNA sequence to help differentiate between all of these different strains, all of these different species. Because at the end of the day, the species that causes SDS is not the same as a species that causes Fusarium wilt in lettuce, even though they both are from the same family of fungi. And so that's where the DNA sequencing piece comes in very handy, and it's a differentiator from PLFA.

44:41 The other aspect here in terms of this is talking really also about understanding the categories of organisms that perform very specific functions. With DNA sequencing you can ask the question, for example, in the phosphorus pathways, if you were to look at phosphorus solubilizers, phosphorus mineralizers—and these are microbes, for example, that make phosphorus available to plants from different forms of phosphorus in the soil that are tied up. Unless the microbes are present in adequate quantities to make them available to the plants. And so being able to use DNA sequencing to measure the genes that are involved in these pathways is another critical differentiator. The last part here, this is actually shared probably between PLFA and DNA sequencing, is the opportunity for the future. Only about 10 percent of who's there in the soil is known today, right? What are they doing? Who are they? How do they impact the crop? Only about 10 percent of that information is actionable today. So that 90 percent that we're collecting from soil samples today, we are innovating to release new indicators to explain more about the soil that we're giving right back to our customers. And so as we innovate and as we learn more about the soil over time, some of the indicators, for example the beneficial indicators that we've developed today that were not available four years ago to our customers—our customers from four years ago can still log into our web portal now, and now they can realize the additional potential, the additional value from these new beneficial indicators that we have released. So that's the opportunity here: as we innovate, as we learn more about the soil, we're giving that back to our customers too. And DNA sequencing really allows for that to happen on a scale that's quite not possible with some of the other technologies and tests.

46:39 Basically, you're saying you're analyzing all this stuff, but there's a vast amount of it that you can't necessarily identify or analyze yet. But you may be able to retroactively go back and actually bring some analysis to that when you make new discoveries?

46:57 Absolutely. And we're already doing that. We're continuously discovering more and we give right back to the customer in terms of those insights. That's pretty cool. So are your computers gonna have to get ten times more powerful if you can identify everything that's out there? You're only looking at 10 percent now.

47:15 Computers are also becoming better over time and becoming more cost effective. So that technology is in parallel becoming better, faster, cheaper, and more scalable. So yeah, I think a big old kind of handshake. That's great. Tim is asking, is there a full list of all the crops that you support online, or do you have to request that? John, do you have that on your website?

47:38 Somewhere of the different crops that you can analyze. For we do have a link on our website, one of the news posts that goes through that. But if you have a question on a crop, you could email us at support at tracegenomics.com and we'll be glad to hit you back and let you know odds are it's in our library.

47:57 What did you say, 21 crops? Absolutely, actually 71. Absolutely, so odds are we've got a map. I saw one of the questions was around blueberries. We've done some blueberry fields. Our core crops, you know, we really focus most of our science development on, but we have done a wide range.

48:19 Rob is asking, is there a time of year that's best for sampling? You know, some one time of the year better than other to really get what you're after. On the nema chemistry side, I mean, it really gets down to kind of that, typically starts with that as a fertility recommendation on the biology side. Purnima, we see it spring, fall, and even in season, depending on what problems we're trying to solve.

48:49 Yeah, and this is really where the stacking is key as well, and when are the decisions being made. I noticed that some of the questions are really around what is the actionability of the data. And you know, we talk quite a bit about stacking chemistry with biology, and some of the actions that our growers take based on this data is around what seed, you know, which seed goes where. Whether it's choice of hybrid, whether it's choice of resistant variety, whether it's choice of seed coat, whether it's in terms of budgeting for fungicides for crop protection or for fertilizers or for biologicals right. And when do those decisions typically get made?

49:26 Like you, we are supporting our customers and sampling about a week before some of the decisions get made for chemistry but about a month before some of those decisions get made for biology because that's really the turnaround time of the test. So making sure that this is in very much part of their process for taking a soil sample, making decisions based on the soil sample, we're just plugging right into that framework. And this is true for broad crops and for specialty crops.

49:53 For specialty crops, the additional value that we're seeing our customers derive from our test is really through sampling at multiple times in the season. So they may, for example for almonds, they may sample once in Q1, like in really in that winter time frame early in the year and then another time probably post harvest, sometime in the fall. And so there's definitely multiple windows for sampling that goes towards assessing how good their treatments are working for some of those perennial crops as well.

50:36 Very good. So I got a couple of questions for you that maybe are a little bit more future looking or, you know, I'm always, you know, can you do this? So last week our webinar speaker was Dr. James White from Rutgers University and he was talking about the whole concept of rhizophagee and the importance of microbes actually on the seed and that actually transferring, you know, to the soil for the next crop. Do you envision the ability if I sent you a sample of seed, would you be able to look at the microbes that are on that? And then if you could, you know, could you compare one lot of seed versus another and say this has a significantly better microbial population than this one? I don't know, just curious. Have you ever thought about it?

51:24 Yeah, yeah, the underlying technology actually very much supports the seed use case. We actually did a little bit of work on it in the early days of the company to really look at quality control too of seed. When you think about the pathogens that are often transmitted on seeds and from seed lots, really how do you quantitate and track some of that? The underlying technology of DNA sequencing allows for that and also the beneficials, kind of it's the other side of the coin key. So absolutely, the potential is absolutely there for that.

52:04 That would be really interesting. Another question that I have, and I've asked this question to a lot of people and have never had anybody say yeah we can do that. You know, one of the things that's always fascinated me with the whole soil microbiome is not only the microbes in that micro population that's out there but it's the plants and the plant roots and the huge variety of plant root exudates that are being put out into the soil to feed and encourage those microbial populations. Do you foresee the ability to

52:41 To be able to analyze the root exudates that are coming out of these plants and then tie that to the microbial populations because what I'm getting at is if we can start doing that, now we can start saying okay well this cover crop produces this root exudate which is good for this microbial population which is going to be beneficial for corn, then we can start making better decisions about that. So have you ever looked at testing the root exudates of different plants?

53:12 Yeah, so one the way in which we really think about the soil and the features that we're capturing from soil, it has to do more with the DNA and the chemistries of the soil, the metabolism, the metabolic pathways, the metabolites. And in the soil, today the platform is not capturing that information. We have partnered and can partner with other labs that are creating that layer of information from the soil and use that to ask exactly the question that you're asking, which is how does the metabolism map to the microbiome and how does that impact decision making at the farm gate.

53:56 One thing that I will say is what our partners are using our platform for already is to look at the rhizosphere and to ask the question now you can do sampling on the from bulk soil to make field level decisions. But when it really comes to understanding product efficacy, the how a product performs over time, you know you might also have some questions around how is the cover crop seed, really what is that microbiome look like around the roots, like what is it fostering for example or what is it repelling over time? So those types of questions we routinely support for our product companies or for our seed company partners where they specifically sample from the rhizosphere and they follow that over time in a replicated plot trial and there's just so much rich information that they're getting from looking at the DNA profiles.

54:53 That'd be exciting if if more of that becomes commercially available and I learned I learned a new phrase too but metabolome. I'd never heard that phrase before but I like that.

55:05 Yeah and and again it just goes to the incredible amount of diversity and richness you know that's in that soil and you know like you said we know more about the ocean and outer space than than the soil, there in itself.

55:20 John or Purnima, do you have any final kind of closing comments? It doesn't look like we've got any more questions. I think my audience is so smart that they knew most of this, I think evidently because they don't have a lot of questions but there's a lot of questions in the chat function not in the Q&A but really in the chat piece. I don't know if you want to pick a couple, there are a couple, there are a whole bunch of them and we certainly would be open to folks reaching out after.

56:01 Guy is asking, is there biological indicators for the good guys in the soil? I assume that you're looking at both the good and the bad, right? Yeah, so when we think about the good beneficials in the soil, those are the ones that we think about, for example making phosphorus more available to plants, the phosphorus solubilizers, the phosphorus mineralizers. We look at nitrifiers, denitrifiers and we also look at some of these fungal to bacterial ratios, microbial diversity in the soil and so on and so forth, oxygen availability. So all of that, it's really looking at the functionalities of soil in terms of nutrient availability, quality and just the overall health of the soil and we're continuing to add to that repertoire as well.

56:49 Great, Dave has a great question here. He says, do you see any effect when when people are growing these poly crops together like they're growing peas, canola and oats all together in the same field and harvesting it and separating it? Do you see a difference in soil biology there versus if those were grown in monoculture populations?

57:10 Yeah, these are questions that we support for our customers. Like every farmer has experiments on their own fields and there are we get asked hundreds of questions like this that are very specific to operations that the farmers have and that's really where the web portal, the ability to be able to compare across different fields, across different times, across different indicators, we're supporting all of that research that farmers can look for the information, these insights on their own. One thing I will say is maybe two nuggets of information. We've seen the biggest shift in the soil microbiome when you put a seed into the ground or when you fumigate. We actually see very stark differences in terms of the types and the abundances.

57:59 Of both beneficials and pathogens when you either put in a fumigation to the soil or when you apply a fungicide, so before and after treatments different products we see different trends for different indicators. We've also sampled from some in terms of monocropping the population looks very different and the diversification index goes down if you look at fields that have been monocropped for two years versus six years versus 12 years.

58:29 And so yes there are certainly very different patterns that emerge based on the crop, based on management practices and rotational practices as well. And all of this is, by the way, we have the tools now to understand what's really happening in the soil. But some things like this corn solar rotational piece, cover cropping etc. it's already being done for a reason, right. And so there's that intuition that's already out there in the field around, for example regenerative ag, you know minimal tilling on composting cover cropping etc. those types of practices related to region rate of ag. I think farmers already know that these are really beneficial practices, but where we can really come in and help is that not every farm is the same—every farm is different. And so being able to understand what that soil looks like in on every farm and being able to come up with a data-driven plan management plan, whether it's for region ag, whether it's for conventional farming, you know whatever your end goal is, whatever your operation looks like, that's where the soil intelligence piece comes in.

59:38 Yeah so really you can answer just about any question that somebody wants to ask. There's no limit there almost.

59:44 Hey John, here's a question for you. Jack is asking if tours of your Ames lab are available if somebody's interested in that. They are available, limited only by COVID-19. As you might expect, Ames is a city in Iowa, particularly has had some spikes. So we will review those upon request, but as we work through this together, we'd love to have you come visit.

1:00:11 Okay, yep, I've personally love to do that myself so that's a good question, Jack.

1:00:18 Here's an interesting question. Sue is asking, do you see your database potentially being used to influence policy changes within states where the federal government—you know, I'm assuming you know just based on findings, could that eventually influence policy?

1:00:37 Yeah I can take that one. When we talk about—retake, yeah I just want to make sure that everyone understands we take our customers privacy very, very seriously and we have, you know, it's really based off of—we have very strong data privacy policy in place at Trace. Where we see us playing a role, whether it comes to thought leadership, policy etc., it is really about looking at land as an asset. And land as an asset, you know it's really the same path right, whether you're using land to grow profitably. Part of being profitable also means growing resiliently and making sure that land as an asset is being nurtured. And that's where I think there is a lot of alignment already between what farmers want to do with their land and what policymakers really want to establish at scale—really some of those guidelines around what farmers are already doing today that is optimal for protection of land as an asset. Let's take that, bring in data science and technology and scale that out across all of the lands that are under farmland management. And so that's really the type of innovation that we're fostering or we're encouraging here at Trace. We are collaborators and partners for everyone in this ecosystem—whether it's a farmer, an agronomist, product company, policymaker. Really at the end of the day, land is land, soil is soil, data is data. The science takes you where you need to go, so you know the playing field is even and it's the same foundation for all of these questions.

1:02:16 That's great. Well I appreciate you guys' time. We are up against our 6:30 time limit here. I know that Monica from your team just posted in the chat that if you have additional questions, she has the email address there of support at tracegenomics.com.

1:02:35 Very, very interesting for NEMA. Thank you very much, John. I'm very grateful for your time as well. I think that we'll be hearing a lot more from your company in the future, and that's exciting to see some of these new things that you discover and will be able to bring out to the field for all of us. So thank you everyone for joining us. Again, remember next week Nick Jorgensen with Jorgensen Angus Land and Cattle up in South Dakota. We'll be talking about the economics of grazing cover crops in bull development, but just grazing cover crops in general. So join us next week at 5:30 for that. And again, for NEMA, thank you, John. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a good evening. Thanks very much, Keith. Good evening. Bye.