Track Your Microbiome with Ease: Introducing the Growers’ Portal

If you’re a farmer or indoor grower, you know how important it is to maintain the health and robustness of your plants. The microbial communities (microbiomes) in hydroponic systems play a crucial role in determining your plants’ overall health and yield. To help you easily track your microbiome, we designed a web-based portal called the Growers’ Portal, which was developed with the help of growers like you.

What is the Growers’ Portal?

The Growers’ Portal allows you to keep track of all sampling results. Depending on the service you choose (Pathogen Mini, Pathogen+, or Custom Service) and the number of samples you require, you can see the patterns of your pathogen or target microbiome over time or a single-point snapshot. With this tool, you can focus on addressing the problem and spend less time trying to identify it. The portal presents the microbiome data in easy-to-understand graphs and tables that make it accessible to anyone without extensive scientific knowledge. The Growers’ Portal is designed for anyone involved in an operation’s IPM strategy, including growers. It has also been designed for individuals that need access to multiple operations, like agronomists, consultants, or managers. We want growers to be able to focus on growing their plants while we take care of microbial data.

Growers’ Portal with Pathogen+

The Growers’ Portal with the Pathogen+ service can detect over 500 plant and human pathogens. This enables you to protect your crops by proactively screening for diseases and keeping track of the relative abundance of prevalent pathogens. The main page will be your key focus as it will give you the top 5 pathogens that require your attention, allowing you to see the most critical information quickly. Furthermore, If you keep sampling with us, you can build a history of the pathogens in your system! As a grower, you can get insights into how your decisions influence the pathogens in your system. For example, if you change the formulation of your mix, you can see how it changes the abundance of pathogens in your system.

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If you want to go deeper, we provide more details of all the pathogens we detected with Pathogen+. You can select the pathogens you want to see using the dropdown menu. You can also interact with the graph to include and exclude pathogens in your view.

Need more info? Go even deeper! The Growers’ Portal also allows you to dive deep into each sample to see what is in your hydroponic system. You can add extra environmental data like pH and temperature to see how factors can affect the growth of your crops. This feature is crucial in helping you understand how different factors can impact the microbiome of your hydroponic system, allowing you to take proactive measures to ensure the health of your plants. We also have Pathogen Profiles linked to the individual pathogens, so you can learn more about the organism, the symptoms, lifecycles and more.

Growers’ Portal with Custom Service

With the Custom Service, the Growers’ Portal provides the same functionality as listed above, but it now tracks the target you define, not just the pathogen microbiome.

Growers’ Portal with Pathogen Mini

Lastly, if you want to focus on the target, the Pathogen Mini service allows you to track a specific pathogen’s presence (or absence) in just a few days. This information enables you to identify and address problem areas and prevent the pathogen from spreading and causing significant harm to your crops.

Conclusion

Using the Growers’ Portal offers many advantages compared to traditional methods or other similar services. For example, traditional methods often involve a messy method of sample collection, physical documents, digital files, and maps, making it challenging to get a clear overview of your microbiome. With the Growers’ Portal, you have all the information you need in one simple service.

If you’re interested in trying out the Growers’ Portal, sign up for the newsletter on our website. The team continues to improve the portal, and you’ll be the first to hear about new features and updates.

All in all, the Growers’ Portal is an essential tool for anyone who wants to grow healthy, robust plants in a hydroponic system. This web-based portal allows you to track your microbiome easily, avoid diseases, and quickly identify specific pathogens.

David Santos is a Biotech and Agriscience Advisor at Healthy Hydroponics