IFPA Takes on Tech

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Welcome to PMA Takes On Tech, the podcast that explores the problems, solutions, people, and ideas that are shaping the future of the produce industry. I'm your host Vonnie Estes, Vice President of Technology for the Produce Marketing Association. And I've spent years in the ag tech sector. So I can attest, it's hard to navigate this ever-changing world in developing and adopting new solutions to industry problems. Thanks for joining us and for allowing us to serve as your guide to the new world of produce and technology. My goal of the podcast is to outline a problem in the produce industry and then discuss several possible solutions that can be deployed today.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Today's podcast is powered by our sponsor AgroFresh. AgroFresh is a global leader and ag tech innovator in the produce industry with a mission to prevent food loss and waste, and to conserve the planet's resources by providing a range of science-based solutions, data-driven technologies and high touch customer services. AgroFresh supports growers, packers, and retailers with solutions across the food supply chain to enhance the quality and extend the shelf life of fresh produce. With decades of experience across a range of crops, AgroFresh is powered by a comprehensive portfolio that includes proprietary solutions such as plant-based coatings, as well as a complete line of packer equipment that helps improve the freshness supply chain from harvest to home, visit agrofresh.com to learn more. AgroFresh, we grow confidence.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Today's topic is biologicals. This is a recorded webinar focusing on biologicals and their viability as an alternative to conventional inputs. What you will hear is one of the most candid conversations I've been a part of on the promise and current status of biologicals as pest control and biofertility. Our guests are experts in the field. We are joined by James Pearce, Chief Scientific Officer from Boost Biomes, Karsten Temme, CEO of Pivot Bio and Brynne Stanton, Head of Strategic Innovation at Joyn Bio. We will jump into the conversation with James Pierce of Boost Biomes describing his company and their products.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
We are a startup microbials discovery company based in south San Francisco and we have 16 employees. And so what do I mean by a microbials discovery company? Well, we discover and deliver live microbes to serve as crop inputs. And that can be the full spectrum from row crops to a specialty crops, such as fruit and vegetables. And indeed it's a specialty crops that are our primary focus. Within that, we're focused on bio control. So these are live microbes that prevent the infection of the fruit and vegetables by pests, bacteria and fungal disease causing agents. And those of you on the webinar can see one of our microbes in action here delaying gray mold on raspberries. And so, some of you may know there are many biological companies out there selling microbes and other biological inputs for agriculture, indeed two excellent examples are with me on this panel. What makes Boost Biomes different?

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
Well, if I use bio-control as an example to explain this, traditionally we've thought of bowel control in a binary sense, and that you have a pathogen in the soil or the roots or the leaves, then you have a plant and the pathogen causes disease on the plant. And then you introduce a microbial inoculant, which inhibits the pathogen and the pathogen goes away, and the disease goes away. Well, if only it were that simple, these two species do not exist in a vacuum. There are millions of other bacteria in these environments, in the soil and the roots, and fungi, and collectively we call that the microbiome. And this is a term that you will have no doubt heard in other spheres beyond agriculture. And within that microbial community, that microbiome, there's a pretty much infinite number of conversations going on between bacteria and fungi, and some positive conversations.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
There are synergistic relationships between microbes that help each other's growth and there are antagonistic microbes that actively inhibit each other, and collectively these interactions we call the interactome. And what makes Boosts Biomes discovery platform unique is that we take into consideration these interruptions when we discover and deploy microbes. And what does that look like in the lab? Well, I haven't got time to go into the details, but please follow up with me afterwards, if you would like to. We basically recapitulate that interactome in the lab. And in doing so, we can identify and isolate synergistic pairs or sometimes consortia of several microbes that are synergistic, they support each other's growth. And we believe, and this is sort of the premise of our technology, that if you subsequently deploy those consortia back into the environment in which they came, they're more likely to be persistent and robust and therefore active when faced with the many biotic and abiotic stresses that they come up against in the environment.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
Think of it as sort of going out into the world, supported by a sycophantic entourage of friends. You're more likely to survive with that group than a loan. And then subsequently you can screen that consortia for any activity you're interested in that relates to crop health. And as I say, our primary focus is on bio control. And I think this premise of robustness and persistence and consistent performance, which has been a bane of microbials over the years, and I'm sure we'll talk about that later. I think because our microbes have proved to have such broad applicability across a wide variety of environments, I think it is testament to this hypothesis. We can control pests in the field, we can control pests in the packing house, along the washing and spraying lines, and we can control pathogens in the clamshell all the way up to the supermarket.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
We can control fungal pests, bacterial pests, nematodes, and interestingly, we have products that get inside the crops where some pathogens lock, for example, classically Panama disease of banana we've shown we can get inside the fruit and control that disease which is a major breakthrough. Also a testament for synergistic microbes is the fact that all our microbes seem to play nice together in the fermentation tank. So although we have multiple microbes, we can co-ferment them, which is obviously has a cost of good implication. And also because they're robust and persistent, they seem to do well on the shelf and we have two year shelf life products.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
So that's all I have time for. I'm afraid a brief introduction, please reach out to me, this email address jap@boostbiomes.com. I'll be happy to answer any questions and getting into any discussions if you'd like to partner with us. And now I'm looking forward to hearing from Karsten and Brynne and getting into discussions. And I'll be defending the corner of the wild type native microbes against the engineer cousins from across the bay.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
My name is Brynne, and I am the Head of Strategic Innovation here at Joyn Bio. Today I'll talk to you a little bit about Joyn, our mission and how we're engineering next generation biologicals. And throughout the course of the next few slides, I'll very quickly tell you a little bit more about what that means. So I still consider myself in fact, to being new to the ag space. I've been with Joyn for about four years now. And given that the microbial complexity and content of soil still truly amazes me. For instance, it's estimated that a single teaspoon of soil contains billions of microbes. Now over time, microbes and plants have evolved to exist in a mutually beneficial relationship with respect to one another. In this relationship, plants provide microbes with food in the form of carbon. And in exchange for that food, microbes provide plants with essential nutrients. These nutrients are so important to crops that they go out of their way to cultivate and maintain their microbiome as evidenced by the fact that they release up to one-third of their photosynthate into the soil.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
At Joyn we're looking to harness this long withstanding naturally occurring relationship that takes place between plants and microbes, but to take this even one step further by engineering our microbes to provide even greater benefits to our target crops. I'll walk you through at a very high level quickly, just what we mean or what this process entails of engineering microbes. So on this side, I've likened the process to the plant biotech model, which is likely familiar to many of you. In this model, you take a beneficial trait and leverage biotechnology to insert that trait into a crop. The resulting crop then produces that beneficial trait whereby it confers protection to the crop.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
At Joyn, we've replaced the crop with a soil microbes. So specifically what we're doing is using biotechnology to insert this beneficial traits into a highly characterized soil microbe that we've confirmed to be highly associated with our crops of interests. It's that resulting combination of the soil microbes with the beneficial trait that constitutes the engineered microbe. We then apply that engineered microbe to our crop of interest at which point that engineered microbe then confers that benefit to the crop. And so we really think about this as the microbe or the engineered microbe as the vehicle that's then delivering these traits to the target crop. We refer to what we're doing at Joyn as engineering better microbes for agriculture, because we're able to go in and really increase the levels of the active ingredient or the beneficial traits, or also provide access or exposure to that beneficial trait over a longer period of time. And so what you get by combining those two things is more consistency with our engineered microbes for agriculture.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
So if you haven't heard about Joyn, we are in fact, a joint venture between Gingko Bioworks and Bayer Crop Science. Even though we are a joint venture, we are wholly independent from our parent companies. We're also a bi-coastal company. So we have a presence, both in Boston and in Woodland, California. In Boston, we are located approximately to Gingko's high-throughput organism engineering foundry. So that's where the bulk of the microbial engineering work takes place. And then conversely, in Woodland, we're located within a Bayer facility. So of course that's where the majority of our implanted work takes place.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
Having the parent companies we have provides us with sort of the best of both worlds. So through Gingko, we're able to have access to sort of breeding edge synthetic biology tools, and through Bayer, we have a lot of exposure to considerable commercial ag expertise, as well as expertise in the field of ag biologicals.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
And then the last thing to mention is that we've been around since 2017 and the company started at that time, with an a round of over $100 million. Before I hand it over to Karsten, the last thing I want to share with you is the four key areas where we are applying or looking to apply our technology. So our technology is focused right now, mainly on crop protection and sustainability, but we could also envision using our technology in areas of crop quality, and we'll talk about that a little later during the Q & A, as well as crop efficiency. We are right now, most active in the areas across the top row. So in crop protection and sustainability, and it's our bio fertility use case that falls under this umbrella of sustainability, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little later today.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
And then the last thing to mention is that we are primarily focused or only right now focused on row crops. So we're taking these areas and applying them to row crops, and that would be mainly corn and soy. And so that sort of a whirlwind intro to Joyn Bio. And with that, I will stop sharing and I am looking forward to sharing additional details throughout the Q & A.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Thanks, Brynne, let's turn it over to Karsten.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
Hi. So my name is Karsten Temme, one of the co-founders at Pivot Bio, and I'll start by sharing a bit about the cause that motivates my team, that drives us. And that's, I probably shared with many of the folks on our webinar and podcast. And that's, we want to see every farm out there be a lot more profitable and have the kind of economics and business sustainability. That means there's longevity, that operation gets passed down to the next generation. And then ultimately, the ripple effect is that we've got a more resilient agricultural system than we have today, better for the health of the soil on that operation, better for the broad environment around us. And just ultimately, the connection between us all gets a little bit shorter.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
And the passion I have, the passion my team has is to contribute towards that cause through the fuel that powers the nutrients every crop needs, and that's rethinking what it means to use fertilizer and maybe coming up with a little bit better way to produce the nitrogen crops need and deliver it directly to the crop in a way that doesn't have some of the side effects that using fertilizer has had across the last century.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
And our focus, like Brynne mentioned, at Pivot, we are focused on the broad acre row crops, and really rethinking fertilizer for the main cereal grains of the world. It turns out that about half of our nitrogen fertilizer is used on corn, wheat and rice. So the impact we want to have is to make that better for a grower. So most of the growers in the US who are in the Midwest planting a corn, soybean rotation, the dilemma they face is on average, about half of the fertilizer that gets applied every year doesn't actually end up in the crop. It's not the fuel that allows the crop to have sufficient nutrients to build the DNA, the protein, and ultimately the grain that drives their economics. And so that nitrogen is lost to the environment. It's either turning into nitrous oxide as a greenhouse gas or it's running off to pollute our waterways.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
And the challenge is that fundamentally moving big, bulky tons of fertilizer around is just inefficient. It's hard to apply it to a field at the time when the crop needs it, and we're forced to bank inorganic nitrogen in the soil. It's like the wrong place to store nitrogen. So the more we can remove inorganic nitrogen from the equation, the more we can produce it on demand for the crop, it has benefits for the economics of that operation, it has benefits for the sustainability of our environment, and ultimately, it's going to lead to a more stable agricultural system.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
So what Pivot has done is go back to nature for inspiration. All of the legumes of the world have symbiosis with microbes that live in their roots breathe in the nitrogen gas from the atmosphere and turn it into ammonia, a form the plant can use. And that symbiosis, it actually exists for all the plants on this planet. It's just not as sophisticated, it's not as evolved as legumes for the crops like the cereals. So what happens is that symbiosis is a looser relationship between the soil microbes and the plant. And when we as humans invented fertilizer, 120 ish years ago, we disrupted that symbiosis. We forced those microbes essentially into hibernation. And the key enzymes that carry out that process of turning nitrogen gas in the atmosphere into ammonia, those have been dormant inside of the genome of these microbes.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
So what Pivot does is we rediscover those microbes. We reawaken those genes, the enzyme that's critical to that process. And we package that up into a product that's easy to use. So it simplifies the work on the farm. It shrinks the entire Haber-Bosch fertilizer factory into something that is living and breathing and working on a daily basis to spoonfeed the plant its nutrients, and ultimately it's packing all of that nitrogen that's produced into the plant instead of storing it in an inorganic nitrogen form in the soil to be lost to the environment.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
So Pivot has spent the last decade developing that breakthrough and bringing it into the marketplace. We've also built a business model that connects us directly with growers. So we sell our product to our customers through independent dealers across the US today. We've been serving our customers for three years now across millions of acres in the US. And we really see it as just the beginning of something different, something that brings us a bit closer to our customer, and ultimately through the benefits to the farm, a bit closer to all of us as consumers on a global stage. So what we've started is something that our aspiration is to grow to be a global company that serves farmers across the world. Primarily is going to be focused on the major cereal grains, and then partner with other types of companies to be able to bring products in the market for different types of crops. And our goal is to be a a partner across agriculture for decades and decades to come.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
So I'm really looking forward to today's conversation around biologicals, happy to talk on nitrogen to any degree folks want, and really jazzed up about the conversation.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Great. Thanks. All right. If everyone can turn their cameras and mics back on and we can start our discussion. So hopefully that was helpful for all the listeners to hear about the companies and their products and how they're approaching biologicals and give it a little background. So thanks for that. So as all the speakers mentioned, there are benefits for using biologicals. There's a lot of benefits over some of the traditional inputs. So the big question of today is, are biologicals a viable alternative to conventional inputs and pest control and fertilizer? They've been around for years, but represent only 10% of fungicide sales and are not making a huge dent yet in nutritional input. And skepticism still remains among a lot of growers. So why is this, and how are your products different and how are you doing this differently that's going to make an impact. James, why don't we start with you?

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
Yeah. I think in general, inconsistent performance, as I mentioned, shelf life, traditionally they haven't last a very long on the shelf and there can be compatibility issues. So you might have to ask to grower to adopt a separate practice. I think it's an unfair, it's not a level playing field either. I don't think the agricultural industry or the food chain has been asked to pay the true price of chemistry. And so when you have a more sustainable solution, you're up against something that's cheaper in terms of money out of pocket, but from an environmental perspective is a lot more there. And therefore, I think fixing that will go a long way towards doing this. And I think outside of the bio-control space, there is no requirement to demonstrate efficacy. So you can sell something on Amazon tomorrow with no data. And that has led to a lot of snake oil out there and that has solid the reputations of decent products that I think are produced by at least the three of us. And we all suffer for it.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Brynne.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
Yeah, sure. We would love to build upon that. So I think it's important to keep in mind the intended use of biologicals and the goal. And I think the goal has always been for biologicals to allow for a reduction in the use of conventional products, but not serve as an all out replacement. So I think it's really important to keep in mind the specific context for under which their use is recommended.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
So, first and foremost, I think you hear a lot of people mentioned that biological should be used as part of an integrated pest management program. So one input of many to control pets, and then taking that one step further. I think a lot of cases where you've biologicals to be quite effective are typically in spaces where they're controlling low to moderate disease pressure. So I think it's really important to keep these things in mind when you start talking about their efficacy. And I think once you start to get outside of this space of low disease pressure or using in combination with a whole suite of products, then you start to see some of that inconsistency and the bad rap that biologicals have come to be known for over the years creep in.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Karsten, do you have anything to add to that?

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
Maybe I'll take a little bit different approach and that's put on my hat as an entrepreneur and say, why do I see a customer's eyes light up in some cases, but not others. And I think it comes down to better. And for a long time, I don't think biologicals have been better or able to deliver something that an incumbent product can deliver. And the real power of a new innovation to captivate a customer's excitement is because it can do something that nothing else before has been able to do. And I think that's now possible because of so many new dimensions of science or technology that are coming together in a bunch of companies and beyond just the three representative today. And so, we think about product design at Pivot as being able to get at the Achilles' heel of the thing we're trying to disrupt. All the things that classic inorganic chemical fertilizers can't deliver today, that's really the thing that if we can design a product to solve, it translates to happy customers and a growing use of our product.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
Similarly, I've been inspired by the team at Provivi and what they're trying to do to scale up the use of pheromones as a bio control mechanism. And really being able to have a different way of looking at what it means to be precise and accurate, something that really hasn't been possible at the same scale with maybe the classic uses of chemistry.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
So kind of keeping with you, and really what customers want and what makes them happy. So nitrogen is pretty cheap and it's pretty effective. So what is the incentive to change? And do you see legislation is going to force the issue for that?

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
I think that innovation is best when it stands on its own outside of legislation. And for us, while fertilizer may seem cheap because it's a commodity, it's still often either the biggest or the second largest expense on broad acre row crop operations. And the challenge is much bigger than just the cost. It's the unpredictability of the performance of that product. Everything's transacted today in terms of the number of pounds and dollars you spend to apply that nitrogen to the field, and nobody holds the fertilizer companies to account for how much of that fertilizer actually ends up in the crop, how much nitrogen is there to fuel the harvest, and that's the equation that we're trying to solve. So when you buy nitrogen from us, it all ends up in the crop.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Go ahead, James.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
Sorry, I'm going fly the flag for Pivot. I think one of the major issues with nitrogen is that generally speaking, you added all of the beginning of the season when the crop doesn't actually need as much. And it's actually later on in the season and the Pivot microbe would still be there and it's impossible to get more nitrogen while it's hard to get nitrogen to the crop mid season. So I think then an appeal of the Pivot technology is getting nitrogen to the crop throughout the season. If you need to add me to your sales team Karsten just say.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
I think that my parting shot is always, I love to be able to find everybody who has a like-mind towards the bigger goal, and we'll take you on the team any day and we'll load your praises throughout as well. So thanks.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
James has got tied a side gig. I love it. So I did want to add, so there are years when nitrogen is cheaper, but I think one of the things that doesn't go away is that it's not in fact cheap for the environment. It's quite taxing on the environment to be continually producing at an industrial scale, the levels that we're producing. So I think one of the biggest incentives to change is what you would get as a concomitant reduction in both the production of greenhouse gas, but also our reliance on fossil fuel. So if we're even able to reduce just a teeny bit the amount of nitrogen fertilizer that's industrially produced that we're providing to our farm lands, this should go a long way in just leaving the environment in a much better state.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Well, I think, of course, all of us listening agree with this, but I just wonder if it's unproven technology in the grower's mind and they're maybe having to pay more, or it looks to them like they have to pay more, or just changing practices can be costly, the time involved to change your practice and to try a new product and worry whether it's going to work or not. We're all kind of thinking, okay, in a world of full cost accounting, when we're really looking at what's happening to the planet, of course, this makes sense, but when you're out there, Karsten, when you're talking to customers, are they willing to take this leap and say, okay, I'll try this even though I know nitrogen works well enough and I've been doing it forever? How do you make that sale?

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
I'll try to frame my answer so it's maybe then applicable to some of the other types of applications for biologicals. One of the things I think that's possible today more than ever in the past for biologicals is we can all talk about the mechanism of action, get into the details on why something works and why this new innovation or product can deliver exactly the benefit we all claim. And that is a great spot to be in.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
One benefit, I think for Pivot is Agronomy 101. Every farmer has talked about nitrogen fixation for 100 plus years. It's not a technical subject that we need to educate customers about, it's something that's near and dear to everybody that we interact with. And so for us, it's really just delivering the proof that we have broken through on what's been this elusive holy grail. And once we can demonstrate that proof for each customer, the flood gates open, the use of the product across all their acres follows very rapidly because it's a reduction in the amount of work required to manage new nitrogen. It's an added piece of mind. It's all these other things about just the equation of nitrogen becomes easier. And I think that is really what we see is driving the flywheel for us.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Biologicals for the most part are better for the environment, decreased nitrogen runoff, improve soils and result, and fewer chemical applications. However, because many of the microbes used are genetically engineered, they cannot be part of an organic farm. Here the panel has discuss what this means to their companies and the products.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
I think organic farming specifies that your agricultural products have to be produced in a very specific way. And one of those specifications is that these products can not be produced with any engineered components. And so by definition, right now, Joyn microbes cannot be used in a process for something that's destined to be organic. They just don't qualify today.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
Yeah, that's one advantage that we have. We are all organic wild type made of microbes. We haven't mentioned it. That said, it's still very hard. When we ferment and formulate our microbes in order to be organic, all the ingredients we have to use have to fall under a list called OMRI. Don't ask me all the acronyms down. So I would guess the O is organic and the I is ingredients and you can make the other two up, but basically that's very restrictive and inexpensive. And I feel for Brynne and Karsten because ultimately, engineered sygenics, gene editing, you can call it what you will, what's frustrating, at least for me is, the people that control what the consumer understand as organic, basically the NGOs who basically make the rules as to what is and isn't organic, no matter all of our best intentions. And so we can talk about EPA regulations until we're blue in the face, but ultimately if you can't get non-GMO project on your label, then you're kind of screwed, no matter how hard we try at our end.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
Thinking about kind of the problems to solve in organic, the challenge with organic today is so many of the inorganic fertilizers used in broad acre conventional farming can't be applied into that organic system. So there's really a shortage of routes to get nutrients into that field. And so what we've done at Pivot, the way we structure our company is we want to be able to push the boundary of knowledge available to all of us. We want to be able to bring those innovations to market as fast as possible. And today, we've put a constraint on our science test to say, we want to avoid making products that are transgenic, that would fall under, I think what the public has perceived as GMO today. And the way it's constrained our product design is it means, in some places we dig into our toolbox, we use things like gene editing. Those are products that won't qualify for inorganic label. And then we've got products in the pipeline that are built with more classic methodologies that do qualify.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
And I think the goal is ultimately to say that the big challenge is we don't have as many tools for nutrients in inorganic operation as you do in conventional. So we just have to really get to the heart of what's the allowable set of tools and then apply those to microbes, which are the wonderful vehicle for doing things that you just can't in any other way. So I think the conversation maybe over time could be, how do we better meet those long-term goals for sustainability or performance, and does that toolbox of what's allowable expander or not?

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
A question I would have for Brynne and Karsten is, given the majority of your product is consumed by chickens and cows, is organic less of an issue for you than it would be for Boosts who are basically selling products that gets sprayed onto raspberries, strawberries, et cetera. Is that an ignorant statement?

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
No, I don't think so at all. As I mentioned, we're focused on row crops where for the most part engineering is widely accepted tool for row crops in the United States.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
So this is a question I was going to ask later, but for Karsten and Brynne, do you see applicability to the produce industry? I know what your focus is right now, and I understand why, but do you see, as you move forward that you would bring products into the produce industry in fruits and vegetables?

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
I think the technology itself lends itself quite well to fruit and veg. I think the challenge is one that we've already hit on, which is this issue of public perception and sort of meeting a pretty drastic shift there, where people are open to biotechnology and engineering for food. I can look to pharma where biotechnology and engineering is perfectly acceptable. So the question is how can we sort of shift a little bit more towards pharma and deal with some of the stigma associated with engineering when it comes to food? And if we can make progress and headway there, I can think of a bunch of different avenues, like shishito peppers, where they have just the right level of heat. So you're not playing Russian roulette every single time you eat one or something of that nature. You can think of a bunch of different ways to leverage engineering for nutrition or quality or taste.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
So I think absolutely, Vonnie, but we would need to see some shifts in the perception. And I think that really just starts with hopefully who's benefiting, why this is beneficial and just talking much more publicly about it.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
Can I jump in? So those consumer-based traits are obviously attractive, but how would a microbe effectively impact those? You've got Pairwise leading the way on genetics for taste and nutrition and flavor. It's a harder task for a microbe to do that indirectly, wouldn't you say?

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
Well, I think for us colonization is key. So it just depends on where in the microbe that, oh, sorry, where in the plant that microbe is colonizing, where it's localizing within a particular plant. And so if you're getting into the right environment then, or within the right compartment within the plant, then you could start to impact some of these qualities. But yes, I see on principle how that might be a little more challenging to grasp.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
So the microbe, in that case, you would have some kind of microbe that would colonize the plant that, would it actually change the genetics of the plant or how would it have that kind of effect? This is very cool.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
Sure. So I think there's a bunch of different ways that you could do this, but microbes themselves wouldn't be changing the DNA of the plants, but they would be inhabiting parts of the plant and producing molecules that give you an interesting flavor profile or something of that nature. That would be one way to do it. You could also sort of spray them on where they're then producing these interesting flavor profile molecules on the surface of the plant. So there's a bunch of different ways to look at this and could be really exciting. But again, I think whenever you start talking about food and engineering, there's a lot of concern that comes along for the ride.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Right. Now, I think those of us in produce in this area are really working at communicating with consumers and making sure we bring the consumer along, but there are so many exciting tools and ways to get at how do we adapt to climate change and how do we work with nutrition and flavor in these areas. So we can add microbes as some of the possible tools. That would be great.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
So I have another question. Could the three speakers speak to persistence in the field or on the shelf. And then specifically for James and the same question, how does the infinite number of molecular conversations that they characterize in the lab shift over time, both in the field and on the shelf?

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
Okay. I'll take the first one. I didn't seed this question I promise, but basically that's the beat of our, that's our premise because microbes deployed are as consortia. They are self-supporting synergistic consortia, and therefore, we've got evidence to show they persist longer. Okay. Not in the field, that's a very long, hard experiment, but in terms of colonization on roots, et cetera. And how the interactions change over time, they will, that's really all I can say. We know the microbiome of a cone roots store relief, whatever it is, changes over the course of the season, because the plant is giving out different exudates, both on the surface and on the roots. And that will affect the microbiome, which in turn will affect who's talking to who.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
All I can say is that we know our microbes persist as an endophyte inside the plant for up to 45 days. What happens after that, I don't know. And frankly, once the food has been harvested, we don't really care. If we can get the fruit off the field without any fungal disease or if we can delay the onset of those horrible furry strawberries you find at the bottom of your clamshell, then our job here is done and we can move. That's really all we can claim to achieve in the moment.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
Karsten or Brynne, any comments on persistence in the field?

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
Yeah, I can touch on that quickly. I think for us, all of our microbes that we're working with have been bioprospected from the field, are existing naturally already in close association with our crops of interest. As far as persistent studies, from a regulatory perspective, we are required to do those studies or we're asked to do those studies. And so we're conducting them right now. Joyn is still a relatively new company, but we've got, I think our second year of field trials. No, in fact, third under our belt. So persistence is still exploring that and can share more later.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
In terms of shelf stability, this for us is really key. And that's why this decision of the microbial canvas that you start with is so critical because we really want to be starting with microbes that are shelf stable for a number of years, that can then just seamlessly fit into a grower's process.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
I think it's an interesting answer. So how you regard persistence is a good thing or a bad thing depends on what it is you're putting out there. A regulatory person would say, that's a GMO microbe. I don't want it to persist. Whereas I take the question of, well, this is a wild type microbes that came from the field. So we want it to persist, and that's what makes out good. We're not motivated to try and get, we don't want a microbes to go away. It's naturally part of the environment. So the longer it's out there doing its thing, the better. It's an interesting take on whether you think persistence is good or bad.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
Well, and I'll add on a layer to say for us, it's all through the lens of performance. The microbes we work with are part of that native microbiome with any of the crops that form our product portfolio. They start in small numbers when the seed is planted, they grow, they multiply, they flourish as the root system is developed and more of the photosynthetic has exuded the sugars to feed them. But once the crop is harvested, they die off. And I think that natural life cycle, the symbiosis with the plant is perfect in the way we design our product, because it means that we have the most number of microbes available to produce nitrogen for the crop at just the time the crop needs the most nitrogen.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
And to James's point earlier about the challenge with using inorganic nitrogen as a fertilizer is, they're in the field at the wrong time and the microbiome is able to produce at just the right time. And so, I think persistence maybe is just the first layer of thinking about microbes can be present or absent at different densities. They can change that relationship with the crop throughout a growing season and that can be a very powerful design tool in tackling some of the problems we all face.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
And so for Pivot, I think we've done a lot to build a model around those broad acre row crops, the cereals, and the technology is applicable into produce. The challenge is they are going to be slightly different. And that's where I think we need as much by way of partners for go-to-market, as we do for really fine tuning what the microbes can do on a day-to-day basis for the crop that gets at the limitations of using inorganic fertilizers today.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
One of the questions I wanted to ask is... So another thing that's been talked about a lot recently is around carbon neutral foods, carbon sequestration, and carbon credits. Do any of you see how biologicals could capture some of this value that's being thrown out and talked about in carbon farming?

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
This is a hot one for me. Technically, yes, microbes can suddenly be a big part of the carbon farming world, but commercially, there is just not currently a powerful word. All the carbon credit systems at the moment are based on models, and those models are built only on practices that have been ongoing for at least 10 years. And that basically leaves you with cover crops and no tail. So if you had a microbe that you said, well, I put all this organic matter in the soil because I've got bigger roots, great, but you're going to be taking carbon measurements for the next 10 years before anyone's going to give you a carbon credit.

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
I also think that putting organic carbon into the soil is a very short-term fix because what happens to organic carbon, it gets respired and therefore releases CO2 into the ground. I think a much more intelligent play would be to mineralize carbon and microbes can certainly do that. I also think it's very tough at $15 a ton of carbon, I think to try and persuade a grower to change their agronomic practice at that price. I'm told it's just not viable. It needs to be in the $50 to $60. And so do we need tax incentives to get people to do that?

James Pearce, Boost Biomes:
And I'll be interested to know what my two nitrogen replacing friends on the panel will think about this. There's currently no nitrogen trading system or any, in fact, any model that will give you a credit for inputs. So, even for Boost, were replacing chemistry with a biological, there is an input to play there that is relevant to the greenhouse gases and yet there is no way of capturing that. I'm told they are developing models that will allow for other inputs and other practices, but right now anything you see on a website claiming X bucks an acre for carbon credit is really noise right now.

Brynne Stanton, Joyn Bio:
I appreciate the practical response to that question, James. I wanted to tackle it from the microbial side of things. So microbes actually are really good at naturally pulling carbon down into the soil where it can be stored for hundreds and in some cases, thousands of years. And so if we're able to pull more carbon into the soil, we'll eventually end up with a more fertile soil. And so I think from the microbes perspective, if we can enhance the microbes ability to do this through engineering, that this could be something that could really, I would say at the end of the day result in more nutritious soil. So just from the microbial perspective alone, I think this is something that is achievable, and I don't think it would have to be far outside of a grower's regime if you could come up with something where that microbe was simply part of the seed package.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
Yeah, I'd agree. I think it's an exciting time. James, you highlighted just the challenge. Nobody's been able to link these things together to date and there's many, many folks interested in working on the space. So maybe we'll see some breakthroughs over the coming years. At the end of the day, EPS footprint is driven by nitrous oxide emissions and methane emissions from livestock. And then we have this potential to sequester carbon if we can figure the permanence challenge out.

Karsten Temme, Pivot Bio:
Really the nitrous oxide, the more we can reduce inorganic nitrogen in the soil, the bigger impact we have there. And for the first time we now have a new class of products, not just from Pivot, but I potentially Joyn and many others that are all going to contribute to changing those inorganic nitrogen levels in the soil. And the science tells us that permanence for carbon sequestration is ultimately linked to inorganic nitrogen levels as well. So there's a lot of potential. We still need these business mechanisms to allow record-keeping, measurement, verification, being able to link those into the markets, but it's at the early days of something that could be really powerful. And some of those opportunities are going to have immediate impacts, and some of those are going to depend on solving that challenge of permanence.

Vonnie Estes, PMA:
That's it for this episode of PMA Takes on Tech. Thanks for allowing us to serve as your guide to the new world of produce and technology. Be sure to check out all our episodes at pma.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe, and I would love to get any comments or suggestions of what you might want me to take on. For now, stay safe, eat your fruits and vegetables, and we will see you next time.