How I’m helping rice farmers in India harness the power of fungi in the soil

By Emily Servante, Postdoctoral Researcher, Cereal Symbiosis, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

It’s an exciting time to be a microbiologist working in rice research. A global push towards the cultivation of water-saving rice is enabling farmers to harness the power of microbes that thrive in less water.

Some farmers already use rice production systems that reduce or eliminate the length of time rice is submerged in a flooded paddy field. At the sowing stage, planting of pre-germinated seeds (direct seeding) rather than traditional transplanting of small plants into flooded paddies reduces…

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