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3Bar Biologics takes technology out to corn fields
JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 15, 2014
Despite commonly conjuring images of smartphones and laptops, technology is branching out of the web and delving into the dirt.
In the world of agricultural bioscience, 3Bar Biologics Inc. is giving Ohio’s No. 1 industry a makeover.
The company, a spinout from The Ohio State University, is helping those in the agriculture business raise healthier crops and produce higher yields.
“I am licensing living, naturally occurring micro-organisms that were discovered by researchers at Ohio State to improve crop yields in farm fields in Ohio,” said 3Bar Biologics CEO Bruce Caldwell.
Caldwell is working with a team at Ohio State that has spent the last 10 years researching Ohio-based microbes, naturally occurring bacteria found in soil.
The team was able to map the genetics of the microbes, isolate them from the soil, grow them in a lab and put them back onto crops with a higher population.
“So you’re taking a beneficial organism, almost like a probiotic, and putting it back onto a young plant or seed so it helps the seed be healthy and ultimately to yield more at harvest time,” he said.
After working on the project for years, this was the first growing season Caldwell was able to distribute any product.
He said prior to rolling the product out, the team tested it on fields throughout Ohio for multiple growing seasons.
The current product focuses on corn, soy beans and wheat, Ohio’s three major crops, but Caldwell said the group is currently researching the microbes’ effect on other plants including cucumbers and flowering plants.
So far, he said the product has been well received.
“I think farmers who have done the basics and gotten the fundamentals right and now they’re looking to drive higher yields, they’re very interested in trying this and we’ve had a lot of success,” Caldwell said.
He said many of the farmers have agreed to purchase one bottle of the product this season and are interested in purchasing more next year based on the results they see at harvest time.
When the farmers get the product, it comes in a gallon-sized bottle that contains both liquid and gas.
A specialized cap on that bottle contains a stabilized form of the bacteria on an organic grain base.
When the farmer is ready to use the product, he simply pushes the cap to drop the microbes down into the liquid and the rapid-growth process begins.
The product has to sit for 18 hours to be fully ready and the farmer then has up to seven days to distribute it.
Over the course of those 18 hours, Caldwell said billions of new microbes are created and ready to enter the soil.
“This approach is to surround the plant with a very hardy and very beneficial type of micro-organism that can out-compete the bad guys. That helps that plant to get better established and helps the plant to take up nutrients more efficiently, and to withstand the stresses it might see throughout the growing season,” Caldwell said.
Although a handful of soil already contains billions of microbes, that number is greatly reduced after Ohio’s winters.
By using the 3Bar Biologics product, farmers are able to ensure their soil contains plenty of microbes to boost plant health.
The product can be mixed with liquid, including liquid fertilizer, and distributed throughout the fields.
Caldwell said each one gallon jug of microbes will cover about 40 acres of crops and can be used with liquid fertilizer and placed during planting.
“So it really fits with some of the best practices in agriculture of targeted delivery of nutrients, where you need them, when you need them and in the right amount. That’s going to be better for the farmer, it’s going to be better for the environment,” he said.
Over the last 20 to 30 years, science has introduced synthetic pesticides and genetically altered crops.
Many of those things are starting to encounter resistance issues, but Caldwell said 3Bar Biologics shouldn’t have that problem.
“So a benefit of using naturally occurring micro-organisms is there are no resistance issues,” Caldwell said.
He said the team uses mircobes already found in Ohio soil so they can be quickly introduced on area farms without issue.
The company’s goal for the product is to achieve a 5 percent higher yield.
“You might say 5 percent doesn’t sound like much, but if you think about corn, soy bean and wheat just in the state of Ohio, that’s a $6 billion value in three crops,” he said. “If we could increase that by 5 percent, it would increase the value for farmers by several hundred million dollars just in the state of Ohio.”
The startup was supported with a grant from the Ohio Third Frontier, and the company was recently accepted into The Clean Tech Open, a business accelerator focused on clean technologies including agricultural bioscience.
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