The leaching of excessive nitrogenous fertilizers applied to commercial crops leads to environmental problems. To understand the dynamics of nutrient use efficiency we are using cutting-edge tools in genomics to identify spinach genotypes efficient in nutrient uptake, assimilation, utilization. We are using natural variation as a tool to identify the genetic variation for the anti-microbial compounds in spinach and variation in the indigenous microbiota for it’s effectiveness against food-borne pathogens.
