Verdesian’s Los Alamos Connection

In early October, members of the media were invited to visit one of the nation’s most guarded laboratories located in Los Alamos, NM, by Verdesian Life Sciences, Cary, NC. At first glance, holding a meeting at the government facility most famous for developing the atomic bomb might seem an odd choice for an agricultural-focused company such as Verdesian. However, according to Duncan McBranch, chief technology officer for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), there is a definite connection between the lab and growing crops.

A researcher at the Bioscience Center works on a project.

A researcher at the Bioscience Center works on a project.

Advertisement

“Biology is at the interface of many different areas in today’s world,” said McBranch. “We have to be part of that active frontier. In recent years, we’ve worked on plant health projects quite often. Our researchers have helped develop stable isotopes to track plant metabolisms and make new chemical compounds.”

Top Articles
Best Agriculture Apps for 2024 (Update)

Alina Deshpande, a team leader for funded projects at the Bioscience Division at LANL, agreed with this view. “New technology can help keep U.S. agriculture competitive through genetics,” said Deshpande. “Using genetics, we can improve the crops and their ability to be disease resistant, cold tolerant, better at managing nutrients, and any number of other benefits.”

As Dave Pesiri, director of the Feynman Center for Innovation, pointed out, much of the research being conducted by LANL doesn’t tie back to the lab’s core mission of protecting the national nuclear stockpile. “Innovation will be critical for helping our nation meet its needs going forward, and that’s why a lot of what we do here is tied to real world research,” said Pesiri. “Right now, approximately 2% of our funding comes from non-governmental sources. By working with private sector companies, we will be able to get much better about meeting this innovation mission.”

Addressing The Nitrogen Problem

An example of this kind of innovation was the discovery and development of one of Verdesian’s key agricultural products, Take Off. According to Nigel Grech, executive vice president of science and development for Verdesian, the motivator for the quest for a Take Off-type product tied back to one simple fact of crop nutrient application — the loss of nitrogen.

“As any farmer knows, nitrogen is the key to growing healthy crops,” said Grech. “It is the most abundant mineral element in most plants. Unfortunately, nitrogen is also the most commonly limiting element in natural and man-made environments.”

In fact, he added, based upon the best available research, approximately 30% to 50% of applied nitrogen ends up not being utilized by the crops. Instead, it is lost in the air and soil. “So put into some hard numbers, this means that more than four million tons of applied nitrogen is lost each year, which adds up to an incredible amount of wasted money for farmers.”

The loss of this high amount of nitrogen is also increasingly coming under fire from environmental groups and federal regulators, added Grech, because of its potential contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and product runoff into waterways. “In the future, crop nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous are likely to be regionally and/or federally taxed with users required to audit their usage,” he said. “This is already happening to some degree in big agricultural states like California.”

The Quest For Take Off

Because of all these factors, Verdesian set out to find some kind of solution to improve nitrogen usage in crops. The company began working with LANL and eventually came up with Take Off. Discovered by a trio of LANL researchers, Take Off is a natural plant metabolite that accelerates carbon fixation and improves nitrate uptake as well as nitrogen use efficiency. According to Grech, when a plant absorbs Take Off, either through the leaf tissue or roots, the product triggers a series of reactions within the plant that helps coordinate nitrogen uptake and photosynthetic processes already ongoing in the plant.

“In essence, the plant begins to grow faster because it is able to utilize more nitrogen from the surrounding soil and enhance fixation,” he said. “The increased nitrogen stimulates metabolism, which increases protein and reduces nitrate in the leaves. The plant makes more of its own natural metabolite, further stimulating carbon dioxide fixation and causing the cycle to begin again.” Another thing that makes Take Off unique, added Grech, is because the product doesn’t affect a plant’s root-to-shoot ratio, it isn’t classified as a plant growth regulator.

For the time being, said Grech, Verdesian is continuing the commercialization of the first generation of Take Off technology by introducing the product into primary fertilizer manufacture. “Next up will be the second generation of the Take Off platform and the commercial evaluation of the transgenic Take Off technology.”

These kinds of technologies, to increase plant yields and crop nutrient efficiency, will only gain in importance in the years ahead, predicted Grech. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” he said. “In the future, growers will have to have access to suppliers and distributors that can help them improve in nutrition, metabolism and plant stress management. And Verdesian will be there to help on all those fronts.”

0
Advertisement