More Efficient Nitrogen Fertilizer For Farmers, Part 1

Michael Barnard sits down with Karsten Temme, PhD, geneticist and CEO of PivotBio. His company, founded with his long term academic collaborator Alvin Tamsir, is based on a eureka moment. They'd been analysing nitrogen-fixing microbes in soil, with the intent of inserting the genetic codes in plants. The microbes naturally fix nitrogen from the air in return for sugars from the plant roots, but that's suppressed by fertilization. But changing plant genetics was hard. Then, as they walked out for coffee one day, they asked "What if we turned off the nitrogen sensors in the microbes instead?" And now they have a million acres under cultivation and $430 million in Series D funding.