New probiotic seeds grow crops that require less water to survive

Today, AGTech startup Indigo launched a probiotic-covered seed called Indigo Cotton, which promises to reduce how much water a cotton plant needs by harnessing the power of microbes. Indigo also closed a $100 million Series C funding round and announced it will launch its next microbe-enhanced seed Indigo Wheat later this year.

When we first heard about Indigo in February, it was promising to increase crop yields by replenishing the microbes that decades of industrial farming have stripped out of our most common crops. The Indigo team studied hundreds of plant species and employed machine learning to figure out which microbes found in heritage plants were missing from modern agricultural staples. Based on this, they developed a microbe...