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T6P: The Next Big Biostimulant? · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello there and welcome back to the podcast. I'm Dr. Russell Sharp,
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  the founder of Eutrema Limited.
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  We make premium fertilizers, novel biostimulants and organic biopesticides and
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  we're talking biostimulants today and a very interesting biostimulant but just
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  as much as it is interesting in an academic way about what it does on the crops.
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  It's really interesting from the perspective of how we develop biostimulants
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  and how they're marketed and they come to market and what makes them a success
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  and academia's involvement in that.
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  And I'll give you my view on that. And I think it's really interesting from
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  a business perspective as well.
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  So the one we're going to talk about today is not one that I manufacture at Utrema.
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  It's not one I come across very often, but there seems
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  to be a number of companies springing up that are
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  talking about it and it's t6p
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  or trehalose 6-phosphate and
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  this compound t6p is
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  a central sucrose status signal
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  in plants it controls the resource
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  allocations including photosynthesis carbon partitioning
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  and growth across all plant species
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  so there's been genetic studies and peer-reviewed
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  field data that show that foliar applications of
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  t6p this pre this uh this signaling sugar
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  as it were can raise yields particularly in
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  wheat and for the moment this is where the biostimulant
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  is focused but it may go on to other crops and
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  horticultural crops and hydroponic crops and things like this later on
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  but it's it's been studied academically
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  in wheat and that's where a lot of these companies that are
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  selling products or hoping to sell products are
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  focused their energy because wheat is a massive crop worldwide
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  it's particularly in the uk it's probably the main crop and overall the academic
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  consensus is that t6p pathway intervention is a credible way of improving yields
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  but large independent multi-crop field data is still you know some way off there's certainly.
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  In-house and small-scale academic studies and
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  things like this so but let's get so it's an
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  interesting one it could be the new tricontinol so
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  tricontinol is a is a fatty alcohol
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  that's used widely in horticulture it's a almost
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  like t6p it's a it's a it's a
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  natural compound that you'll find in plants it's not a hormone but.
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  It it helps with photosynthesis and partitioning things
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  like that so it's very and this could be in that
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  sort of band of biostimulants a single
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  compound that is not a hormone but is
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  does have biostimulatory effects and modifies plant
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  growth and photosynthesis so but the really
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  interesting thing is that there is one
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  company called unium and
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  i don't know you pronounce that union u-n-i-u-m and
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  i've met the one of the guys from there he gave a talk at the same
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  talk i was giving to an agricultural distributor early
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  in the year and he talked he's got a rain union have
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  got a range of biostimulant and fertilizer products
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  just like utreema have and we don't compete on many
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  things but we don't interact either very often and
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  one of the compounds was this a t6p
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  product and he showed
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  some data for their for their studies and
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  things like this and it sparked
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  my interest because i've heard of another company selling this as almost a
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  proprietary they invented it and
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  so it'd be really interesting to compare the two so we're comparing union's
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  product to sugar rocks his product and the union products one liter per hectare
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  and really really high return on investments are claimed nine to one So that's
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  sort of like, you know, increase your yields massively.
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  Like 87% above breakeven performance.
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  That's a really high claim for return on investment for a biostimulant.
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  And then costs of like £64 a hectare.
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  So, yeah, really strong claims there.
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  And then the actual claims of germination improvement, chlorophyll concentration,
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  stress tolerance, many of the same claims you'll find in any biased imminent, really.
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  And they claim 69 trials and pharma experiences.
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  And whether pharma experience just means customer bought it and tried it and liked it, I don't know.
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  Intellectual property-wise, it's more about the formulation and
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  less clarity about the unique ip i think they may even
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  buy the product in rather than make it themselves that's it
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  talking to them that's what they do for a lot of their products they're a specialist in
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  formulators and distribution things like this whereas
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  sugar rocks this is a product that
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  came on later but they're claiming to have proprietary technology now it
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  might be that the t6p molecule is slightly different and
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  it's they've published in nature biotechnology i
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  think they've also got a patent perhaps on this certainly they
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  are looking for a lot and a lot of investment but it
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  doesn't the thing about their investment is it doesn't mention that
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  other companies are selling t6p biostimulants and
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  if i was at union if that's how you pronounce it
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  i'd be a bit pissed off myself because this is
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  a sugar rocks is a spin-out company from
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  rothamstead research in oxford university and so
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  that's public money and public grants and
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  investment public investment that's gone into
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  producing a competitor to their product it's not
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  gone to support them it's gone to compete against
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  them and take market share away from them and this
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  that would be extremely frustrating to me if i was union the same happened to
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  me with the james hutton institute they we did a lot of research on kaitasan
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  and in the past i've worked with James Hutton Institute on Kitesan and then.
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  And we were marketing Kitesan and then suddenly James Hutton Institute decided
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  they were going to start up.
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  A Kytosan company, Spinout. And again, that's public money.
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  The James Sutton Institute is an academic research organization in Scotland.
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  I'm not quite sure whatever happened to that, but when I heard the news about
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  that, I was like, that's a bit off.
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  Rather than partnering with British business, they're actually competing directly
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  against British business.
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  So that was that's very strange there's no
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  data yet on or information yet on sugar rocks
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  and how much how they're going to position it in the market like costs
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  and things like this they're very much at the early stage
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  they're every trade show i've been to recently they're
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  presenting their biostimulants and so i think they're both looking
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  for investors and looking for customers and um
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  best of luck to of them the problem
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  they said they're going to look at two new compounds
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  as well they're going to be patenting them in the next few
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  months that's interesting because a biostimulant
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  company that sells just one product is is in danger it's very difficult to run
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  a successful profitable company with just one biostimulant especially if you've
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  got lots and lots of investors and you're burning through cash and you've only
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  got one product and it has to live and die by whether farmers decide to use it.
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  As I've said previously on podcasts, biostimulants are a vitamin, not a pill.
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  So once farmers have paid for their fertilizers and their pesticides,
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  if they've got any money left, they can then choose whether they want to gamble
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  on increasing yields with a biostimulant or put that money in the bank.
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  So just because you have trial data that says you can increase yields by 10%
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  or whatever it is you claim, it doesn't mean that farmers are going to buy it.
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  Because they will still see it as a risk and they might be prudent and put that
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  money away for further investments especially with the economic climate and the way farming is going.
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  So it's an interesting one we still need lots of information about
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  what where the sugar rocks products will position itself and i guess if it goes
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  onto farms and it sees really good success then it'll be taken up same goes
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  for the union product and any biased image whether you're buying a T6P product
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  or any other type of biostimulant.
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  So, interesting one.
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  To look at, I'd say you've got the Sugar Rocks' advantages are possibly patented
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  technology and the fact they've got government funding grants and investment behind them.
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  And Unium's advantages, they've already got routes to market.
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  They're already working with the distributors.
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  So it'd be interesting to know which one comes out on top in the fight for T6P supremacy.
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  And yeah, watch this space. Just look back at that Kytosan spin out.
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  It was actually University of Strathclyde spin-out that was working with the
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  James Hutton Institute. So I'll just clarify that before I get sued.
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  I've got enough heat on my back already with my previous podcast episodes.
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  That's everything for today. Tomorrow I'm heading to Fruit Attraction in Madrid.
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  So hopefully there'll be lots of biostimulant companies there I can talk to.
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  And then the next week I'm going to the Vertical Farming World Congress in Amsterdam.
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  I've been able to blag some free tickets for those events. Thanks very much to the organisers.
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  To get so we can do some podcasts about the technology that's
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  on show there if you are organizing a show or a
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  trade event a conference then hit me up with some free tickets and i'll fly
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  over on my own dime and come and talk to your attendees and your exhibitors
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  if you've liked this podcast then please do give it an apple podcast review
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  and that would help me tremendously until next time thank you very much for listening goodbye.