The price of plenty: Can technology help find a better fertilizer?

The golden elixir of modern agriculture began with a wizened alchemist, alone in a room boiling his own urine, in search of a substance that would turn base metals into gold. One day, he found phosphorus, glowing pale green.

Around two centuries later, industrial chemists figured out how to “turn air into bread,” as the saying went at the time, with the development of the Haber-Bosch process for manufacturing ammonia, a form of nitrogen that can be used by plants.

Phosphorus and nitrogen are key building blocks of the synthetic fertilizer that feeds half the world. However, the environmental cost is heavy: The process of making nitrogen fertilizers emits around 2% of the world’s total carbon dioxide. Easily soluble synthetic fertilizers dissolve in groundwater or surface water and move away from farm fields, leading to contaminated water wells, algae blooms that poison water supplies, and an uninhabitable “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, a new generation of inventors and investors is looking for another breakthrough. Big-name investors like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg have invested millions of dollars into companies researching agricultural technologies that could replace or lessen the need for chemical fertilizers. The agricultural biotech sector, which focuses on plant yield and resiliency, received $6.6 billion in investments in 2021 and 2022, according to startup tracker PitchBook.

A technology gaining a lot of attention involves tiny microbes that could serve as a new green fertilizer. Researchers are also looking at other ways to decrease reliance on synthetic fertilizers, such as slow-releasing fertilizers like struvite and more traditional methods like cover crops.

While the agriculture biotech sector and its investors are bullish on high-tech solutions, the researchers who study them aren’t as confident. The question remains: Can the answer to our fertilizer problems be found in a lab?

Just as humans need carbohydrates and protein to live, crops like wheat and corn need nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to survive.

Most crops are picky eaters; they can digest only certain forms of nitrogen. They cannot absorb nitrogen from the air, despite it being primarily made up of nitrogen gas. Instead, bacteria in the soil convert nitrogen from the air into a usable form for plants.

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Microbial fertilizers are nitrogen-fixing bacteria developed by biotech companies. Farmers can apply these fertilizers along with chemical fertilizers.

Founded in 2010, California-based Pivot Bio brought to market the first nitrogen microbes for corn. It is valued at $1.7 billion, according to PitchBook.

Pivot Bio has genetically programmed microbes to produce ammonia regardless of the existing amount of nitrogen compounds in the soil, said Ernie Sanders, Pivot’s senior vice president of product innovation.

“Our bacteria create a small amount of nitrogen every single day and are growing right there on the roots of the plant, so it’s taken up immediately,” he said.

Selling at between $20 and $24 an acre, the company’s products were used on 3 million acres in the U.S. in 2022. That’s less than half of one percent of the 657 million acres farmers planted, according to USDA data.

Another company making a similar product is Kula Bio, which was founded by two Harvard professors in 2018. The company has raised around $60 million in venture capital funding, according to PitchBook.

Kula’s microbes come with energy stored within them. Once they are in the soil, they begin converting nitrogen in the air into ammonia for the plants, co-founder Daniel Nocera explained.

Although the startup has not sold any products yet, Nocera said the firm is conducting field trials focusing mainly on farming lettuce, tomatoes and berries.

Some farmers have used the microbes as a replacement for some amount of chemical fertilizers while others have used it as an additive. In the former case, farmers maintained their yield; in the latter case, farmers saw an increase in yield, Nocera said.

“We’ve had amazing successes with our farm trials where we never see a decrease in yield,” he added.

Pivot Bio officials pointed to several third-party studies of its “PROVEN40” product suggesting its effectiveness. The company didn’t pay for the test but provided the microbes. The field test found that even with 25% less nitrogen applied, plots treated with the microbes did not lose yield.

However, academic researchers aren’t certain about the effectiveness of biofertilizers. Daniel Kaiser, a nutrient management professor at the University of Minnesota, believes microbes are not reliable at this point.

“The big issue is just unpredictability,” Kaiser said. “You need to demonstrate clearly that a certain percentage of the time that (the biofertilizer) is effective and doing what it says it can be doing, but the data I’ve seen doesn’t prove it.”

Kaiser led a trial funded by Pivot Bio from 2019 to 2021 to study the company’s microbes. He ran trials in multiple locations, comparing corn yield from soil with and without Pivot’s microbes at different rates of synthetic fertilizer application.

Only one sample plot with microbes saw more yield with less synthetic fertilizer added, according to Kaiser’s results.

Kaiser said it’s hard to know whether microbial fertilizers can survive in already biologically active soils, or whether they can sufficiently grow in number. He also said that farmers may be able to get the same yield using less fertilizer because they were over-applying fertilizer already.

“I mean, growers could reduce [fertilizer] and put this product down and get the same yield,” he said, “but it doesn’t necessarily prove the product works.”

Kevin and Korbin Kudera, father-and-son farmers from the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network, also tested Pivot’s microbes on plots with reduced fertilizer application and compared their corn yield with plots containing normal fertilizer amounts. They found the plots with microbes gave the same yield as plots without the biofertilizers.

Prasanna Kankanala, director of research and development at Trace Genomics, an Iowa-based soil analysis company, doubts microbial fertilizers can completely replace synthetic fertilizers.

Since different microbes are adapted to different types of soil and climate, it’s challenging to “create a microbial product that is going to work everywhere,” she said.

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In addition to microbes, researchers and funders are working on developing other alternatives to synthetic fertilizers.

One old-fashioned approach getting new attention is cover crops: planting crops to add nutrients and protect bare soil. Chris Topp, a researcher at the St. Louis-based Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, is interested in breeding crops to capture more of the nitrogen already in the soil.

Among other things, his lab is focused on finding cover crops that compete less with corn seedlings.

“Better cover crops will lead to potentially higher-yielding corn that needs less nitrogen, while also adding to soil structure and soil organic carbon,” Topp said.

The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service is also researching cover crops. Research ecologist Steven Mirsky maps the performance of cover crops on farms across the country, using those data to generate computer models that can help farmers make site-specific decisions about how much to fertilize.

“That helps with both precision nitrogen management and with conservation,” Mirsky said.

Despite the uptick in research interest and adoption in recent years, cover crops were planted on only around 5% of harvested cropland in 2017, according to the USDA.

The cost of buying and planting cover crops can be up to $30 an acre, said Rob Myers, head of University of Missouri’s Center for Regenerative Agriculture. For comparison, fertilizer for an acre of corn this year is expected to cost about $244, according to MU. The center received a $10 million grant from the USDA in March with the aim of doubling cover crop acreage nationwide by 2030.

“Farmers have to get familiar with what’s going to work with the cover crops for them,” he said.

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Using cover crops may have some unintended consequences. University of Illinois researcher Nakian Kim found that cover crops could have both positive and negative effects on land that had been heavily fertilized for decades. Although cover crops may reduce the risk of fertilizer leaching, they may also leave the soil more primed for production of nitrous oxide, the study found.

Researchers are also looking at slow-releasing fertilizers, which release nutrients gradually and are less likely to wash away. These include manure and a phosphorus fertilizer called struvite, a mineral crystal-like compound made from wastewater.

Struvite is drawing commercial interest. Canadian company Ostara announced in 2021 that it would build a $25 million plant in St. Louis to manufacture a struvite-based fertilizer.

Sourcing struvite from wastewater would lessen the amount of phosphorus compounds already in the environment from reaching waterways and reduce reliance on mined rock phosphorus, said Joanne Thiessen Martens, a soil science professor at the University of Manitoba. However, she said more research is needed to test its effectiveness in different environments.

“Removing that phosphorus from the wastewater as struvite is definitely a big environmental benefit,” she said.

While all these approaches may offer some benefits, many researchers believe there is not one single solution that can replace synthetic fertilizers or solve the problem of fertilizer overuse.

John Lory, a plant science professor at the University of Missouri, said he cannot foresee a future without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers anytime soon because we rely on them for our nutritional needs.

To truly solve the problem of fertilizer overuse, Lory suggests a fundamental change to how and what we farm. For example, increased corn production for biofuels has led to increased fertilizer use and increased nitrogen runoff.

“Nothing about nitrogen is easy,” Lory said. “It’s just one of those challenges where there’s not a magic pill.”

This story is part of The Price of Plenty, a special project investigating fertilizer from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and the University of Missouri School of Journalism, supported by the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative.

Wireless Telecom Group to Showcase Products that Accelerate the Development of Next-Generation Wireless Systems at IMS 2023

Wireless Telecom Group, Inc.

Parsippany, New Jersey, USA, June 13, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wireless Telecom Group (NYSE American: WTT), announced today that its test and measurement brands – Boonton, Holzworth, and Noisecom – will showcase industry-leading instruments with the performance and capability necessary for accelerating the development of next-generation wireless systems during IMS 2023 at Booth 1619. Product demonstrations will feature specialized capabilities across amplifier characterization, high-performance RF signal generation, and phase noise analysis. As a test and measurement leader, the company will also host a technical session on RF and microwave power sensor technologies.

Boonton will demonstrate fast-switching, low phase noise RF signal generation enabling accurate component characterization and testing of radar and communications systems. The measurement and analysis will be made with Boonton true average RF power sensors operating at the industry-fastest rate of 100,000 measurements per second.

Higher-order modulation schemes, like those used in advanced communication systems, utilize signals with high peak-to-average power ratios that can strain amplifier performance. A demonstration will feature the rapid identification of amplifier compression using crest factor measurements and statistical analysis from Boonton peak power sensors.

Holzworth will demonstrate broadband, low phase noise signal generation and real-time phase noise analysis, supporting the quick evaluation of a local oscillator’s performance and symbol error contributions in 5G and Wi-Fi communications systems.

As noise floors and sources of RF impairment continue to rise, system performance can decline significantly from the lab to the field. A demonstration will showcase how Noisecom programmable noise generators can produce highly controllable additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) used to analyze system behavior when operating in real-world noise conditions, with results analyzed by industry-leading peak power sensors from Boonton.

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The IMS MicroApps theater will feature an informative Wireless Telecom Group technical session on Wednesday, June 14 at 9:45 AM Pacific, titled, “I Know I Need to Measure RF Power – Now What?” The seminar will provide practical insight for measuring RF and microwave power, including different sensor technologies and architectures, as well as important sensor considerations to enable modern radar and communications systems.

“With innovations in amplifier testing, signal generation, and phase noise analysis, Wireless Telecom Group continues to push the limits of T&M technology for next-generation systems to reach peak performance,” says Walt Strickler, VP of Engineering and Product Management. “We look forward to showcasing our latest products and test and measurement expertise in four in-booth demonstrations and our IMS MicroApp presentation on RF and microwave power measurement devices at this year’s show.”

Held in San Diego, California, IMS 2023 is a premiere event for leaders in RF and microwave engineering with exhibition show dates from June 13 to June 15, 2023.

About Wireless Telecom Group

Wireless Telecom Group, Inc., comprised of Boonton, Holzworth, and Noisecom, is a global designer and manufacturer of advanced RF and microwave components, modules, systems, and instruments. Serving the wireless, telecommunication, satellite, military, aerospace, and semiconductor industries, Wireless Telecom Group products enable innovation across a wide range of traditional and emerging wireless technologies. With a unique set of high-performance products including peak power meters, signal generators, phase noise analyzers, signal processing modules, noise sources, and programmable noise generators, Wireless Telecom Group enables the development, testing, and deployment of wireless technologies around the globe.

Wireless Telecom Group, Inc.’s website address is wirelesstelecomgroup.com. Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this news release may be considered "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such statements include declarations regarding the intent, belief, or current expectations of the Company and its management. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could materially affect actual results. Such risks and uncertainties are identified in the Company's reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022.

Investor ContactMichael Kandell25 Eastmans RoadParsippany, NJ 07054Tel: (973) 386-9696Fax: (973) 386-9191

Marketing ContactMaria Droge: +1 (973) 386-9696Wireless Telecom Group Inc.25 Eastmans RoadParsippany, NJ 07054Tel: (973) 386-9696

42Gears Achieves Zebra Technologies Validation of Interoperability

42Gears' SureMDM validated by Zebra's Global Enablement Center for seamless compatibility with select Zebra mobile computers, printers and RFID readers

BANGALORE, India, June 6, 2023 /CNW/ -- 42Gears, a Zebra PartnerConnect Independent Software Vendor, today announced that it has successfully completed Zebra's Enterprise Testing Program for its SureMDM solution. The designation validates that 42Gears' Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) offering, SureMDM, was successfully tested for performance, functionality, and interoperability with select Zebra mobile computers, RFID readers, and printers.

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Zebra Technologies is a leading digital solution provider enabling businesses to intelligently connect data, assets, and people. 42Gears is a part of the award-winning Zebra PartnerConnect program.

Completing Zebra's Enterprise Testing Program officially certifies that SureMDM enables Zebra device management administrators to accomplish the following tasks on select Zebra mobile computers, RFID readers, and printers:

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"By successfully validating the interoperability of SureMDM with select Zebra mobile computers, RFID readers and Zebra Print DNA printers, we are excited to empower the next generation of workers who rely on Zebra devices across industries like retail, transportation & logistics, healthcare, and field services," said Prakash Gupta, Co-Founder and CTO of 42Gears.

Zebra Technologies' Enterprise Testing Program enables eligible channel partners to test the interoperability of their software and hardware solutions with select Zebra mobile computers, scanners, printers, RFID solutions, and software products to meet user application-specific needs.

"Supporting frontline task and service workers with secure and seamless access to critical data and resources through their handheld devices is vital for maximizing productivity. By integrating SureMDM with select Zebra devices, retail and field service companies can equip their workers with the necessary data and apps to improve performance and efficiently perform daily tasks," added Prakash.

For more information on 42Gears' partnership with Zebra, and a specific list of validated devices, please click here.

About 42Gears

42Gears is a leader in enterprise mobility management, offering cutting-edge solutions that aim to transform the digital workplace. Delivered from the cloud and on-premise, 42Gears products support all major mobile and desktop operating systems, enabling IT and DevOps teams to improve frontline workforce productivity as well as the efficiency of software development teams. 42Gears products are used by over 18,000 customers across various industries in more than 115 countries and are available for purchase through a global partner network.

For more information, please visit https://www.42gears.com.

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