Welcome to the Laboratory of Manish N. Raizada
Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Canada
Ranked as one of the world's best universities for agriculture
Lab Mission: To conduct fundamental and applied research in crop probiotics for Canadian farmers to reduce the need for expensive chemical inputs, and to research inexpensive and sustainable innovations that improve the lives of small scale indigenous farmers. For our major lab accomplishments and current projects, click here. For our latest publications, click here or on Google Scholar. To learn more about the challenges and solutions to global hunger, click here. Watch a short YouTube video about our Sustainable Agriculture Kits (SAK) that have improved the livelihoods of 272,000 people on small scale farms. Read more about >200 individual SAK innovations here, view them as picture-based lessons or watch videos. Join our 7,500 followers on X (Twitter) at @Innov_Farming.
Lab updates:
May 15, 2024 - Congratulations to Roshan Pudasaini for successfully defending his PhD thesis. We are proud of you!
Dec 31, 2023 - Congratulations to lab members, Michelle Thompson and Anuja Shrestha, for successfully defending their PhDs this year, as well as Jake Gregory for defending his MSc. Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow, Kamal Khadka, on starting his own lab as an Assistant Professor of Crop Breeding at the University of Idaho (USA). Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow, Travis Goron, on becoming a biologicals field scientist at Corteva, Canada. We will really miss all of you!
July 17-18, 2022 - Manish Raizada was featured on BBC World Service The Climate Question, in an episode entitled "Can we feed the world without using chemical fertilizer?" BBC World Service English has a global audience of 81 million people weekly. Available as a podcast here and on Apple.
July 6, 2022 - Manish Raizada was invited by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to speak to member nations about biofertilizers in a seminar entitled "Sound Fertilization for Food Security in the Context of the Current Crisis" which can be viewed here.
Sept 8, 2022 - Manish Raizada wrote an editorial for The Western Producer magazine in which he proposed an enlarged federal government program to help Canadian farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizer -- a producer-centered plan based on cash incentives. It can be found here.
June 30, 2021 - Manish Raizada was invited by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, Rome) to provide the keynote address to policy makers from ISBWG member nations on how biofertilizers can contribute to the global circular bioeconomy. A summary is here.
June 26, 2021 - Manish Raizada described our discovery that corn silks possess
a complex microbiome on CBC Radio Show Quirks and Quarks (800,000 audience):
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/jun-26-the-quirks-quarks-listener-question-show-1.6080839
May 26, 2021 - Manish Raizada was invited by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and IFA to present a global webcast on microbial biofertilizers for smallholder farmers. Also available on YouTube.
Mar 25, 2021 - Manish Raizada was invited by the International Fertilizer Association (IFA, Paris) to co-present a podcast on nitrogen fixing microbes for cereal crops for its global members
July 27, 2020 - Manish Raizada presented a webinar on Opportunities for AgriScience Collaboration Within and For Africa [Sponsored by Agricultural Scientists for Africa, The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUForm) for Africa and UM6P Morocco]. Click here to download (high resolution 28 Mb). For low resolution (2.7 Mb).
July 1, 2020 - Manish Raizada has been named as an Honorary Professor of Agriculture (ESAFE) at Mohammed VI PolyTechnic Institute in Morocco, a new elite university that provides free tuition to graduate students from across Africa
July 15, 2020 - Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow Dr. Tejendra Chapagain on being appointed as Soil Fertility Specialist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This is a permanent senior scientist position with the Ministry involving research, policy and extension. He will be located in Guelph.
Sept 1, 2019 - Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow Dr. Malinda Thilakarathna on being appointed as Assistant Professor of Agricultural Plant-Microbe Interactions at the University of Alberta
Sept 1, 2019 - Congratulations to former PhD student Walaa Mousa on being appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology at Stockton University in New Jersey, USA, and subsequently as Assistant Professor at Al Ain University, UAE.
Sept 1, 2019 - Congratulations to new PhD student Roshan Pudasaini on being awarded Guelph's most prestigious graduate scholarship, The Arrell Scholarship
Nov 28, 2018 - Manish Raizada was an invited speaker in a course on translating crop microbiome research to farmers in developing countries at the United Nations ICGEB research institute in Trieste, Italy.
Nov 1, 2018 - Manish Raizada was an invited Keynote Speaker at the 2018 Annual Meeting of Centre SEVE, a group of 60 plant biology labs across various Quebec universities.
Mar 2, 2018 - Manish Raizada gave an invited lecture at the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory, UK
Feb 21, 2018 - SAKNepal estimates that our sustainable agriculture kit products and practices have now impacted 60,000 rural families (up to 260,000 people directly or indirectly) in Nepal.
Dec 12, 2017 - Raizada Lab launches freely available picture book lessons for smallholder farmers for 5 regions of the world (900 pages total, by Manish Raizada and Lisa Smith) at SAKbooks.com
Oct 25, 2017 - Manish Raizada gave an invited lecture on crop probiotics at the University of California at Berkeley
Oct 1, 2017 - SAKNepal estimates that our sustainable agriculture kit products and practices have now impacted >25,000 rural households (>100,000 people) directly or indirectly in the mid-hills of Nepal, especially women farmers.
Aug 16, 2017 - SAKNepal project featured in Canadian Geographic magazine here
Mar 17, 2017 - Manish Raizada selected to give a Chair's Choice Plenary Talk at the 29th Fungal Genetics Conference in California
Dec 20, 2016 - Short documentary film by David Borish on the impact of the SAKNepal project on farmers is now available here.
Oct 1, 2016 - Raizada lab discovery (by Walaa Mousa) of a remarkable anti-pathogenic probiotic microbe from an ancient African-Asian crop was published as an Article in Nature Microbiology on Sept 26, 2016. It is described in an episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) national radio show, Quarks and Quirks. A cool movie of the phenomenon was captured by Walaa Mousa:
In the video, the millet root is the vertical purple-red column on the right. Fusarium fungal pathogen was added at a distance at the upper left (not visible), and in response, the probiotic bacterial strain M6 (GFP-labelled, green) has swarmed towards it, apparently exited, and multiplied dramatically on the left surface of the root (rhizoplane). In parallel, probiotic M6 has apparently induced dramatic growth of root hairs (long purple strands on the left, bending vertically and forming a thick mat) onto which the probiotic cells are starting to stack as green layers, similar to a lasagna (in the analogy, the root hairs are the red noodle sheets, and the filling is the probiotic bacteria in green). As a result, multiple barriers are formed against the Fusarium pathogen. Within this complex, probiotic M6 produces potent fungicides to kill invading Fusarium so that it cannot enter into the root.
Feb 1, 2016 - Raizada lab discovery (by Sameh Soliman) that a beneficial microbe in a plant acts analogous to human immunity cells was reported in Current Biology and selected as the Editor's Choice (Discovery) in Plant Biology by the popular international magazine The Scientist in the February 1, 2016 issue.
May 15, 2024 - Congratulations to Roshan Pudasaini for successfully defending his PhD thesis. We are proud of you!
Dec 31, 2023 - Congratulations to lab members, Michelle Thompson and Anuja Shrestha, for successfully defending their PhDs this year, as well as Jake Gregory for defending his MSc. Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow, Kamal Khadka, on starting his own lab as an Assistant Professor of Crop Breeding at the University of Idaho (USA). Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow, Travis Goron, on becoming a biologicals field scientist at Corteva, Canada. We will really miss all of you!
July 17-18, 2022 - Manish Raizada was featured on BBC World Service The Climate Question, in an episode entitled "Can we feed the world without using chemical fertilizer?" BBC World Service English has a global audience of 81 million people weekly. Available as a podcast here and on Apple.
July 6, 2022 - Manish Raizada was invited by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to speak to member nations about biofertilizers in a seminar entitled "Sound Fertilization for Food Security in the Context of the Current Crisis" which can be viewed here.
Sept 8, 2022 - Manish Raizada wrote an editorial for The Western Producer magazine in which he proposed an enlarged federal government program to help Canadian farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizer -- a producer-centered plan based on cash incentives. It can be found here.
June 30, 2021 - Manish Raizada was invited by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, Rome) to provide the keynote address to policy makers from ISBWG member nations on how biofertilizers can contribute to the global circular bioeconomy. A summary is here.
June 26, 2021 - Manish Raizada described our discovery that corn silks possess
a complex microbiome on CBC Radio Show Quirks and Quarks (800,000 audience):
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/jun-26-the-quirks-quarks-listener-question-show-1.6080839
May 26, 2021 - Manish Raizada was invited by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and IFA to present a global webcast on microbial biofertilizers for smallholder farmers. Also available on YouTube.
Mar 25, 2021 - Manish Raizada was invited by the International Fertilizer Association (IFA, Paris) to co-present a podcast on nitrogen fixing microbes for cereal crops for its global members
July 27, 2020 - Manish Raizada presented a webinar on Opportunities for AgriScience Collaboration Within and For Africa [Sponsored by Agricultural Scientists for Africa, The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUForm) for Africa and UM6P Morocco]. Click here to download (high resolution 28 Mb). For low resolution (2.7 Mb).
July 1, 2020 - Manish Raizada has been named as an Honorary Professor of Agriculture (ESAFE) at Mohammed VI PolyTechnic Institute in Morocco, a new elite university that provides free tuition to graduate students from across Africa
July 15, 2020 - Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow Dr. Tejendra Chapagain on being appointed as Soil Fertility Specialist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This is a permanent senior scientist position with the Ministry involving research, policy and extension. He will be located in Guelph.
Sept 1, 2019 - Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow Dr. Malinda Thilakarathna on being appointed as Assistant Professor of Agricultural Plant-Microbe Interactions at the University of Alberta
Sept 1, 2019 - Congratulations to former PhD student Walaa Mousa on being appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology at Stockton University in New Jersey, USA, and subsequently as Assistant Professor at Al Ain University, UAE.
Sept 1, 2019 - Congratulations to new PhD student Roshan Pudasaini on being awarded Guelph's most prestigious graduate scholarship, The Arrell Scholarship
Nov 28, 2018 - Manish Raizada was an invited speaker in a course on translating crop microbiome research to farmers in developing countries at the United Nations ICGEB research institute in Trieste, Italy.
Nov 1, 2018 - Manish Raizada was an invited Keynote Speaker at the 2018 Annual Meeting of Centre SEVE, a group of 60 plant biology labs across various Quebec universities.
Mar 2, 2018 - Manish Raizada gave an invited lecture at the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory, UK
Feb 21, 2018 - SAKNepal estimates that our sustainable agriculture kit products and practices have now impacted 60,000 rural families (up to 260,000 people directly or indirectly) in Nepal.
Dec 12, 2017 - Raizada Lab launches freely available picture book lessons for smallholder farmers for 5 regions of the world (900 pages total, by Manish Raizada and Lisa Smith) at SAKbooks.com
Oct 25, 2017 - Manish Raizada gave an invited lecture on crop probiotics at the University of California at Berkeley
Oct 1, 2017 - SAKNepal estimates that our sustainable agriculture kit products and practices have now impacted >25,000 rural households (>100,000 people) directly or indirectly in the mid-hills of Nepal, especially women farmers.
Aug 16, 2017 - SAKNepal project featured in Canadian Geographic magazine here
Mar 17, 2017 - Manish Raizada selected to give a Chair's Choice Plenary Talk at the 29th Fungal Genetics Conference in California
Dec 20, 2016 - Short documentary film by David Borish on the impact of the SAKNepal project on farmers is now available here.
Oct 1, 2016 - Raizada lab discovery (by Walaa Mousa) of a remarkable anti-pathogenic probiotic microbe from an ancient African-Asian crop was published as an Article in Nature Microbiology on Sept 26, 2016. It is described in an episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) national radio show, Quarks and Quirks. A cool movie of the phenomenon was captured by Walaa Mousa:
In the video, the millet root is the vertical purple-red column on the right. Fusarium fungal pathogen was added at a distance at the upper left (not visible), and in response, the probiotic bacterial strain M6 (GFP-labelled, green) has swarmed towards it, apparently exited, and multiplied dramatically on the left surface of the root (rhizoplane). In parallel, probiotic M6 has apparently induced dramatic growth of root hairs (long purple strands on the left, bending vertically and forming a thick mat) onto which the probiotic cells are starting to stack as green layers, similar to a lasagna (in the analogy, the root hairs are the red noodle sheets, and the filling is the probiotic bacteria in green). As a result, multiple barriers are formed against the Fusarium pathogen. Within this complex, probiotic M6 produces potent fungicides to kill invading Fusarium so that it cannot enter into the root.
Feb 1, 2016 - Raizada lab discovery (by Sameh Soliman) that a beneficial microbe in a plant acts analogous to human immunity cells was reported in Current Biology and selected as the Editor's Choice (Discovery) in Plant Biology by the popular international magazine The Scientist in the February 1, 2016 issue.
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