Fixing a Broken Industry: Evologic’s Game-Changing AMF Biomanufacturing Technology
- marc89908
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Article in partnership with Evologic Technologies an Austrian company developing and optimising fermentation processes from pilot to scale-up and industrial manufacturing of living microbe formulations.
The agricultural industry is under immense pressure to boost productivity while navigating a growing list of challenges—soaring fertiliser costs, climate change, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss. Biological solutions have positioned themselves as the main contenders to solve these challenges effectively. Particularly mycorrhizal fungi have been grabbing the attention of scientists for decades, offering a wide array of critical benefits to plants and the environment – improving nutrient absorption, enhancing drought resilience and soil structure, and supporting carbon sequestration.Â
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have become particularly prominent, as they can establish relationships with the majority of agricultural crops. The commercialization of mycorrhiza as agricultural inputs has been pursued for decades, perpetuated by developments in biotechnology and growing demand for biological solutions. However, despite the immense potential and efforts made, most AMF-based products on the market fail to deliver the necessary quality to provide benefits and consistent results in the field. This is largely owed due to outdated and inefficient manufacturing methods that cannot scale reliably.
Evologic Technologies is addressing this gap with a breakthrough in AMF production. Evologic has developed a novel biomanufacturing technology that address the shortcomings in product quality of AMF. Thereby Evologic is setting a new standard for mycorrhizal inoculants. Their proprietary technology enables large-scale, high-quality AMF cultivation with unprecedented quality and reproducibility — offering agriculture a viable, cost-effective biological solution where previous attempts have fallen short.
Market Push Towards Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Inoculants – What Are The Benefits?
It is already a well-known fact that soil microbiota plays an essential role in nutrient absorption and soil fertility. Consequently, it is not a surprise that the agricultural industry is seeking to utilize some of the most productive members of the soil community to increase crop productivity and offset soil fertility decline. This has become quite apparent in the market, with mycorrhizal inoculants reaching a market size of 1.18 billion in 2024, and being expected to grow to 1.89 billion by 2029 (9.65% CAGR). Mounting scientific data supporting the importance and benefits of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is positioning them among the most prospective microbial contenders to facilitate the transition to a more productive, sustainable and climate-resilient crop production.
Enhancing Agricultural Productivity
In symbiosis with plants, the mycelial networks effectively increase the surface area for nutrient absorption which greatly facilitates nutrient transfer. Increased nutrient availability results in plant biomass and yield increase, as well as improved nutritional value of fruits and seeds. Depending on the host plant, the observed average yield increase usually range 10-40% (e.g. 20% in wheat, 37% in maize, 40% in raspberries).
Increasing drought resilience
With the ongoing climate change, extreme weather events like droughts are becoming a more common occurrence in many agricultural areas. Active mitigation measures are necessary to sustain agricultural productivity in these adverse conditions, and AMF can contribute in two ways – by activating the plant’s stress resistance mechanisms, and producing compounds that create soil aggregates (glomalin), which increase soil stability and water holding capacity. Taking tomato as an example, plants inoculated with AMF showed increased growth in both dry and well-watered conditions compared to the non-inoculated control, with increases ranging from 19% to 115%.
Sequestering carbon
To compensate for their valuable services, plants provide carbon sources they produce via photosynthesis to AMF. This way the carbon from the atmosphere is collected and processed by plants, and stored in the soil within AMF’s mycelial networks. It is estimated that 3.93 Gt of CO2 equivalent is allocated to AMF every year, which equates to around 12% of global fossil fuel emissions.
Where Are AMF Products in the Market?
Despite the impressive potential, the large-scale adoption of AMF in agriculture is lagging. So, what is missing? Why is research systematically full of praise for AMF while market adoption paints a drastically different picture? A metastudy shows that the majority of commercial AMF products fail to replicate successes made at the lab scale. While 85% of lab-scale and field inoculants produced the desired effects, only 16% of commercial products did the same.
Limitations of Current AMF Manufacturing Technologies
The complexity of AMF biology, their obligate symbiotic nature, and mycelial structures pose considerable bioprocess and downstream processing challenges. State-of-the-art AMF manufacturing technologies struggle to solve these challenges and produce at ton scale within a reasonable timeline and budget. The reliance on cultivation systems that utilize solid substrates come with inherent scalability and contamination issues. Additionally, approaches that include cultivation of AMF on host plants take can several months, as well as significant manual labor and downstream processing efforts, which increase quality risks and the cost of the end product, reducing its competitiveness in the market.Â
These inefficiencies highlight the need for novel manufacturing technologies that can produce AMF at scale and competitive costs, without sacrificing quality.
How Evologic is Solving Key Manufacturing Challenges
Evologic Technologies, unlocks biologicals with manufacturing technology. In the recent years Evologic has developed a new approach to AMF production, addressing product quality and costs challenges. Based on its proprietary technology, Evologic has achieved 7 times greater product concentration compared to state-ot-the-art approaches, and delivered a product that meets the highest standards of quality specifications necessary for desired field performance, successfully paving the road for large scale in-vitro AMF production. This marks a pivotal moment in the commercialization of AMF, and showcases the relevance of manufacturing technologies in delivering effective biologicals.Â
The technology used for this achievement was successfully tested and implemented on more than 8 other fungal strains, and offers capabilities for producing many more.
It is not just about finding the best and highest-performing microbes; it is also about how those microbes are cultivated, processed and formulated into the final product, and whether the quality is maintained at each step. Manufacturing technologies that can keep up with the versatility of microbes, do not compromise quality and are economically viable are pivotal for unlocking the commercial value and impact of not just AMF, but all biological products. They are the cornerstones that bear the weight of the biological transition global industries are attempting to make, doing the crucial work for wide-scale adoption – providing quality and efficacy at economically viable costs.
Evologic Technologies is building and strengthening these cornerstones, aiming to secure a more sustainable future and provide effective solutions for versatile challenges of biomanufacturing. Get in touch with them directly if you're interested to know more.