Plants That Talk: Coming Soon To A Field Near You
As part of our effort to bring you the latest information on cutting-edge technology and machinery we’re featuring regular Q&A discussions with several ag tech startups.
Today we’re chatting with Dan Garblik, InnerPlant's Senior VP of Operations and Finance, about the startup’s early warning seed trait technology and how it can help farmers make proactive management decisions. InnerPlant is based in California’s ag-rich Central Valley and has received notable investment support from John Deere, MS&AD Ventures and UpWest. The venture was founded by Shelly Aronov and Rob Kumimoto. Aronov currently serves as CEO and Kumimoto is Chief Science Officer.
The companies’ seed trait technology portends a future where farmers take zone management to the next level by managing individual plants versus managing in blocks or groups.
Farm Journal: Explain how InnerSoy works and how it provides an advantage over scouting with Normative Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) and/or more mainstream sensors?
Dan Garblik: InnerPlant’s technology starts with the seed that contains our trait. Farmers plant the seed and conduct their operations as they normally would with no need for extra steps. Once the plants are established, the trait lays dormant (unlike always-on resistance traits such as RoundUp Ready) until the plant is attacked by the target stress. Our trait is tied to a plant’s immune system, so when it’s attacked by a fungus, the plant activates its immune system and simultaneously makes our signaling protein. The light emitted by our protein is not visible to the unaided eye but is detectable using satellites, drones, tractors, etc. Once the signal is detected the agronomist and/or farmer knows exactly which plant or plants are being attacked by fungus and can take whatever action they decide is appropriate.
NDVI and other existing tools are not actually “real-time” but lagging indicators that show damage already suffered in a field. It’s like the fire department calling you to tell you your house has burned down. Our technology provides much earlier warning, such as a smoke detector in your kitchen that alerts you to smoke so you can take action to prevent your house from catching fire in the first place.
The InnerPlant signal is detectable about 48 to 72 hours after the onset of infection when the plant’s immune system is activated. That’s weeks before an agronomist or farmer would be able to see symptoms while walking the field. It provides enough of an early warning the farmer can prevent the damage to the crop that’s eventually detected by NDVI.
FJ: John Deere leading a $16 million funding round was big news for InnerPlant, and then the recent news GROWMARK is signing on to pilot the InnerSoy trait in 2024 was another step toward mainstream acceptance. Do you view those developments as somewhat of an affirmation the technology will indeed prove useful to farmers?
DG: Yes, our company directly benefitted from one of the few times that Deere has led a funding round in addition to their partnership in developing an integrated precision farming platform - along with fellow partner in the precision platform, Syngenta. This is absolutely an affirmation of the value of InnerPlant’s technology. And, having a large customer like GROWMARK piloting InnerSoy in their sentinel fields this spring is an important first step toward widespread farmer adoption of our technology.
FJ: Regarding the GROWMARK pilot, what is the goal of this partnership and what needs to take place for InnerPlant to feel like the partnership was a successful venture?
DG: We expect to see positive steps across our three goals:
- Demonstrate the value of our fungal-detection trait as an early-warning system against fungal attacks.
- Collaboratively educate both the GROWMARK and InnerPlant teams about how the system works in commercial fields.
- Introduce GROWMARK’s member farmers to our technology and gather feedback on the system.
FJ: What’s next for InnerPlant as we head into a new row crop farming season?
DG: We’re laser-focused on commercializing our InnerSoy fungal sensor over the next few years. Concurrently, we’ll add additional traits to InnerSoy with insects next in line. We also plan to begin work on InnerCorn next year (we’ve done some very preliminary work in the last six months) and then will consider new crops. We’re working with soy and corn first because they’re the largest row crops and so hold the greatest impact both economically and environmentally.
FJ: Tell us how InnerPlant came to be.
DG: InnerPlant started when Shely Aronov’s (our founder) father-in-law introduced her to the concept of biosensors that have been used in the lab for decades. She suspected the concept would have considerable value if it could work outside the lab. She spent time speaking to a lot of farmers to validate her idea and understand what they would require from a system based on technology. They made it clear any useful system would have to be inexpensive, scalable to work on the vast size of row-crop fields and require no changes to current operations.
Shely was also introduced to plant molecular biologist Rod Kumimoto (our co-founder), who agreed biosensors would be very useful in the field, but he pointed out that no one had figured out how to detect the signal at scale, in daylight. The two co-founders dug a little deeper and found a lab at Stanford that helped pioneer the detection of plant signals from space.
The physicists at the lab were convinced they could detect a signal in the field in daylight but doubted Rod and the biologists would be able to create a viable biosensor. While the biologists were confident, they could create a viable biosensor, they doubted the physicists would be able to detect the signal in the field in daylight.
The interesting part of the story is for the first year or so, the biggest challenge was for the biologists to convince the physicists they could build the biosensor, and for the physicists to convince the biologists they could detect the signal. Field tests in late 2019/early 2020 settled the question and work started on creating InnerSoy.
To learn more about InnerSoy, head over to the startup’s website.
