PowerPollen, a company whose Pollination-on-Demand technology gives farmers greater flexibility by allowing them to optimize the timing of pollinations, has entered into a commercial license agreement with Bayer. The agreement, which is intended to help corn seed production growers increase their yields, allows Bayer to access the Iowa-based ag tech company’s first scalable pollination technology for corn seed.
Since the 1930s, when commercial corn hybrid seed production was first established, growers managed pollination in corn seed production fields through specific female-male inbred planting schemes that are heavily reliant on favorable weather and environmental conditions for successful pollinations. Adverse weather events and other environmental factors post-planting have always presented significant challenges for pollination, often affecting seed production yield, purity and quality.
“Since launching PowerPollen six years ago, we’ve extended our preservation technology to multiple crops and extended the life of corn pollen from a few hours to over one year,” said Dr. Todd Krone, co-founder and CEO of PowerPollen.
PowerPollen’s patented technology includes collection, preservation and application of pollen in seed production fields using custom-designed tools, and pollen preservation and handling methods built to scale for commercial operations.
“PowerPollen’s technology allows us to mitigate risk in the pollination process and explore several production schemes globally,” said Shannon Hauf, Senior Vice President and Head of Seed Production Innovation at Bayer Crop Sciences. “That further enables our company to provide top genetics and technology in the highest quality seeds to our customers.”
The financial terms of the agreement, which was publicly announced on Wednesday, were not disclosed.
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition, and it includes the Bayer Crop Sciences division. PowerPollen is headquartered in Iowa with additional research operations in Puerto Rico and Texas
