Over the past few centuries, the carbon levels in our soils have significantly decreased as a result of agricultural practices exacerbated by the effects of climate change. Despite this loss, stable carbon storage remains crucial for healthy soil and climate resilience. On this week’s Climate Break, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Loam Bio, Tegan Nock explains a new way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground. For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/how-fungi-is-enhancing-soil-carbon-sequestration-underground-with-tegan-nock/
How Climate Change Puts the Agriculture Industry at Risk
Since the Industrial Revolution, our soils have lost between twenty and sixty percent of their carbon levels as a result of agricultural practice exacerbated by more common and more extreme droughts and floods resulting from climate change. Farmers have witnessed their crops endure mass devastation as a result of these unprecedented environmental disasters. Hence, the loss of carbon in soil threatens the stability of both the agriculture industry and global food security.
Why Does Soil Need Carbon?
Stable carbon storage in soil is crucial for healthy soil and supports resistance to climate vulnerability. But how? A 1% increase of carbon in soil equates to a two percent increase in its water-holding capacity, in turn creating more drought-resistant soil that can better weather extreme climate variability. By enhancing its water-holding capacity, as well as nutrient retention rates, stable carbon contributes to both the structure and function of soil. Consequently, soil health and productivity are contingent on soil’s carbon content. By recognizing that stable carbon storage within their soil can lead to more nutrient-dense crops and bigger yields, farmers have a clear economic incentive to seek agricultural solutions that can reduce the current rate of carbon loss their crops are experiencing.
The Future of Fungi: Building Resilient Soil Ecosystems
Based in Orange, New South Wales, Australian biotech start-up Loam Bio has developed a new way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground. The solution, a microbial fungi-based seed treatment, is far less complex than one might initially think, simply requiring farmers to sprinkle the ground-up dust of fungal spores onto seeds actively used in their planting systems. As crops grow from those seeds, the fungal spores attach themselves to the roots. The tendrils of the fungus then extract the carbon that has been absorbed by the crop it latched onto.
Plants, on their own, sequester carbon from the atmosphere—a process crucial to mitigating fossil fuel emissions. The microbial fungal treatment leverages that sequestration by reducing the plants’ natural emissions of carbon. This particular type of microbial fungi, therefore, provides a level of protection against standard plant respiration, thereby reducing the amount of carbon returned to the atmosphere and instead storing it in soil for a longer period than the natural carbon cycle.
Loam Bio relies on a cross-disciplinary team ranging from geneticists to mycologists to plant physiologists to carbon methodology experts. For example, the fungi and other organisms involved in the treatment are pre-screened through a genetic selection process that evaluates whether they are safe to introduce to the agricultural landscape and can effectively interact with the herbicides and fertilizers that may be used in crop production. The success of the fungi, however, is ultimately dependent on the soil type and the climatic environment of the respective farm to which it is being applied via seed treatment.
Soil Expert Skepticism
While there is hope within the science community for the potential of the uptake of carbon in soil as a climate solution, some experts remain skeptical of whether the use of microbial fungi in field tests will translate to a meaningful impact on the carbon release of crops on operational farms. Further testing and monitoring will be required for a full evaluation of the benefits and impacts.
The agriculture industry relies on intensive farming practices that are increasingly worsening soil erosion and overall decreasing the quality of farming soil, including depleting the soil’s carbon content. Loam’s Bio initiative provides one possible pathway to try and reverse this consequence of industrial farming. So far, Loam Bio has had some encouraging results, achieving soil carbon content levels of 6%—far surpassing the US average of 1-4%. This revolutionary treatment has the potential to transform soil into an invaluable carbon sink, even more than it is now.
Who Is Our Guest?
Tegan Nock is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Loam Bio. A sixth-generation farmer from central west New South Wales, Australia, Nock combines her agricultural roots with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, Agriculture Operations, and Related Sciences from Charles Stuart University. In addition to her work at Loam Bio, Nock produced Grassroots: A Film About a Fungus, showcasing her passion for soil health and climate resilience. Featured in Netflix’s Down to Earth with Zac Efron (Season 2, Episode 8: Eco-Innovators), Tegan shared insights on the seed treatment and the power of fungi to bolster stable carbon content in soil.
Further Reading:
For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/how-fungi-is-enhancing-soil-carbon-sequestration-underground-with-tegan-nock/
Ethan: I’m Ethan Elkind and you’re listening to Climate Break. Climate solutions in a hurry. Today’s proposal: using fungi to help plants store more atmospheric carbon underground. We spoke to Tegan Nock, the Chief Operating Officer of Australian biotech startup Loam Bio, about the need to increase the carbon that plants capture in soil.
Nock: We know that there is too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But at the same time, there's also not enough carbon that's actually sitting within our soils. Partnering up those two problems has brought us to the solution that Loam Bio is working on.
Ethan: Loam Bio’s solution involves treating farm seeds with a specific type of fungal spores. Once those seeds grow into plants, the fungus then causes the crops to breathe in more carbon dioxide than non-treated plants.
Tegan: What happens when we introduce the specific type of fungi that we've selected for is that as that breath in does happen, the fungi are actually storing that carbon in forms that make it much more difficult for that respiration process to happen.
Ethan: The fungus then helps ensure the plants bury that excess carbon in the soil, via their roots. Nock believes farmers have an economic incentive to utilize this treatment because the excess carbon in the soil can improve soil health and its ability to produce more nutrient-dense crops and bigger yields.
Tegan: There's a realization from growers that carbon really does underpin soil fertility. And that has impacts then on productivity of the businesses and profitability of farms ultimately.
Ethan: To learn more about Loam Bio’s work and how plants can help store more carbon underground, visit ClimateBreak.org.