Nanoparticles Improve Crop Efficiency

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

With narrow margins in the current farm economy, ag technology needs to be able to show a clear return on investment. Clark Bell of Nano-Yield says that while their technology maybe small in size, it’s big in terms of returns.

Bell… “ Essentially our premise is generally when you use our technology at a minimum, you'll see a three to one return on investment.”

The company uses nanoparticles to improve the efficiency of fertilizer and crop protection products.

Bell… “ We have an interesting mode of action that's done by endocytosis. The easiest way to put that in lay terms is we create a Trojan horse, and that Trojan horse is the nanoparticle. And inside of that nanoparticle is how we get a number of those different ions to then be released into higher efficiency into a plant. And so we've known for decades upon decades that when we apply nitrogen, phosphorus, that 30 to 60% of the time when we put out those products, 30 to 60% of that product does not go where it's intended to go. And so we create that efficiency with our nanoparticle to, land where it needs to be. And that's how we've been able to scale and have the success that we've had up to this point.”

Bell said the technology has been proven across a wide variety of crops.