Novel Synthetic Polymers could Lead to Greater Crop Yields for Farmers

Jun 22, 2022

Scientists at the University of Birmingham have invented a new method to encourage bacteria to form growth-promoting ecosystems that could be used to coat the roots of plant seedlings, which is expected to result in stronger, healthier plants, and higher crop yields in agriculture.

In nature, the roots of seedlings form mutually beneficial relationships with communities of microbes (fungi, bacteria, viruses) in soil, and exchange nutrients, allowing both the plant and the microbes to flourish. This is particularly critical in the early stages of a plant's life when the seedling is in a race against time to reach self-sufficient growth before the nutrients and energy stores in the seed run out.

Dr. Tim Overton, an applied microbiologist from the University's School of Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Francisco Fernandez-Trillo from the School of Chemistry led a team to develop novel synthetic polymers that stimulate the formation of these bacterial communities in a way that mirrors a natural process known as biofilm formation.

A biofilm is a finely orchestrated community of microbes, supported by matrix of biological polymers that forms a protective micro-environment and holds the community together.

The researchers worked jointly on a four-year project on how polymers interact with bacteria, which resulted in the synthesis of a group of acylhydrazone-based polymers.

These new polymers were designed to act as an adhesive scaffold, "seeding" the formation of a microorganism-polymer complex to initiate and expedite biofilm formation. Once the biofilm is formed, the bacteria become a self-sufficient and self-organizing community, and produce their own matrix to allow the transmission of nutrients and water, and the discharge of waste products.

The project involved Ph.D. students Pavan Adoni and Omar Huneidi, who subsequently progressed research showing the polymers aggregate bacteria, and improve biofilm formation. Critically, they also showed the process is fully reversible, and the biofilm can be dispersed by changing the environmental conditions. The results of these experiments and further studies will be published in 2022.

Click here to see more...

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”