Show Rural 2024 – Innova launches bioinoculant Combio in partnership with Embrapa

Innova Agrotechnology company has announced the launch of the biological inoculant Combio, developed in partnership with the agrobiology unit of Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation).

The innovation was officially presented in the presence of AgroPages during the Show Rural 2024 fair, held in Southern Brazil and considered one of the largest in Latin America.

Combio combines three bacterial strains that act in biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) and promote plant growth.

"The differentiating factor of this inoculant is that it combines the benefits of the traditional Bradyrhizobium inoculant with bacteria that play various stimulating and protective mechanisms for seedlings, providing greater quality and uniformity to them," said Embrapa Agrobiology researcher Jerri Zilli.

The product comes after screening more than 700 bacteria, also analyzed for their antagonistic capacity to fungi that interfere with the germination and emergence of soybean seedlings in the field.

"During the study, it was found that [the bacteria] Bacillus subtilis and Paraburkholderia nodosa showed great antagonistic potential to fungi and stimulated the plants through various mechanisms, resulting in more uniform and vigorous seedlings," Zilli explained.

Once the characteristic of promoting the growth of soybean plants was confirmed, the bacteria were combined with Bradyrhizobium, essential for providing nitrogen to the crop.

After tests in greenhouses and fields, it was found that plants inoculated with Combio developed superiorly compared to those with the standard inoculation with Bradyrhizobium.

According to Embrapa researcher Luís Henrique Soares, this bioinput can advantageously replace the traditional inoculant in soybean cultivation, which contains only the specific microorganism intended for BNF.

"In addition to the symbiotic microorganism, Combio has two other strains that enhance growth promotion and provide more vigor to the crop through biochemical action complementary to the plant," he revealed.

Eleven Embrapa units were present at the 36th edition of the Show Rural 2024 fair.

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)