Bordeaux now has its own atlas of bacteria in vineyard soils

lthough only 1% of bacteria in soils are currently known, Starfish Bioscience has developed an ultra-high-resolution microbial DNA sequencing technology capable of reconstructing the genomes present in any given sample. After two successive rounds of capital raising, the Bordeaux-based start-up company incubated by Unitec and Bernard Magrez has now announced that it has created an atlas identifying over 10,000 bacterial genomes and 40 million genes across both banks of the Bordeaux wine region. It has also noticed major differences between cultivated and uncultivated soils.

Starfish Bioscience now plans to harness artificial intelligence to identify the bacteria with functions vital to ecosystem balance. It will formulate these beneficial microbes into wettable powders designed to regenerate degraded vineyard soils and address specific issues faced by winegrowers. After an initial assessment of its future client’s soil health, Starfish Bioscience could, for example, supply bacteria that promote the production of water-retaining polymers to help mitigate drought or improve the cohesion of aggregates in the soil and its resistance to erosion. “There may also be a need to boost nitrogen fixation by microbial communities to limit reliance on chemical fertilisers or create a barrier effect to prevent an invasion of opportunistic pathogens that will not find an ecological niche to spread”, explains the company’s founder Sandrine Claus. After Bordeaux, she intends to extend her expertise to other French wine regions.