Team:NCTU Formosa/Human Practices/Integrated
Agricultural Improvement Station
After we decided to work on phosphate solubilizing bacteria for our project, we had to learn all the details of how they work and how they affect plants. To do this, we visited the Agriculture Improvement Station in Taoyuan to ask experts. There, we found the ideal nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels for many different plants. Additionally, we found a universal phosphorus range that could sustain most of the plants grown in the world today. We use our model to predict how much B. subtilis to inhibit to fall into this range.
Chung Hsing University, Professor Young
During the school year we had an opportunity to visit Professor Young at Chung Hsing University. Professor Young is an expert on soil microbiota, and he gave us a lot of helpful advice. First, he confirmed that B. subtilis is a dominant phosphate solubilizing bacterium and is thus a good target of inhibition. More importantly, Professor Young pointed out the effects of protein degradation. This allowed us to design experiments to better model the effects of our bacteriocin in soil.
Asia Agri-Tech Expo
As part of our investigation on the usefulness of our project, our team attended the 72nd annual Asia AgriTech Expo held in Taipei. The event allows the top businesses of the agriculture industry in Southeast Asia to meet and discuss new ideas. Of the 80+ businesses we were able to interview many expressed interest in using bacteria, specifically phosphate solubilizing bacteria, to regulate soil factors. However, not much was mentioned on how to regulate these bacteria, or how to predict their exact effects on soil. We could see that as the industry leans closer and closer to microbial solutions, our system would be more relevant than ever.
