This year, Agricen celebrates 20 years of agricultural technology research, discovery and innovation aimed at sustainably improving crop yields. Two decades is no small feat in the agribusiness industry, and it's an even bigger achievement in our sector, focused on agricultural biostimulants and biologicals.

This sector has made huge strides since we were founded in 1998 in Pilot Point, Texas. When we began, there was a general skepticism about biological solutions for agriculture. This was driven in part by a lack of knowledge about how the science had begun to advance—moving beyond "bathtub brews" to advanced, quality controlled products with claims that could be supported by field and university data.

Accomplish MAX, Extract PBA, and Titan XC contain concentrated biochemistry that helps growers increase nutrient availability to their crops, enhances root growth and functioning, and improves overall plant performance. But, what exactly is biochemistry?

Biochemistry is the chemistry of life. It is created by, in, and from living organisms, such as soil microbes. A number of different biochemistries are created by soil microbes—each serving an important role in soil microbial functioning, and even in plant functioning.

Agricen and Taranis, a precision agriculture company, have received a grant from the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation to collaborate on a project to advance and commercialize a new precision agriculture system for abiotic stress detection and prevention in row crops. 

Abiotic stresses are environmental or physical impacts on a plant (e.g., drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, nutrient deficiency), and result in billions of dollars of lost crop value each year. The Agricen/Taranis collaboration will address this agricultural challenge by creating a solution that merges the Taranis platform—which incorporates field imaging technology and a deep learning algorithm—with Agricen’s proven biostimulant technologies.

Over the past few years, we've posted several agriculture-related videos that showcase the efforts growers are making to implement new products and practices that help them improve ag productivity and sustainability. If you haven't yet seen them, here are a few of the most popular and most recent.

For the past several years, Chris Perkins, a grower and Nutrien Ag Solutions location manager in Otwell, Indiana, has been running an experimental, high management, continuous corn plot using several products in the Loveland Products portfolio, including Accomplish LM and Titan, so that he can prove the value of the products he sells to his customers.

Many of the decisions that Chris makes in the management of his plot are driven by ongoing research at the university level, primarily that of Dr. Fred Below of the Crop Physiology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Biostimulants and biofertilizers are now joining biopesticides as technologies that have proven themselves in the field. As they continue to deliver benefits to growers and acceptance grows, more and more biological-based products are being introduced from companies of all sizes—including products like Titan XC and Extract. 

We are happy to announce today that Agricen now has operations on two continents: North America, with headquarters and a manufacturing plant in Texas, and Australia, with a new manufacturing facility in Dandenong, Victoria.

Agricen Australia is producing sustainable fertilizer biocatalyst products under the names of Basis® and Foundation™ LM for distribution in the Australian market through Loveland Agri Products and Landmark. The products are manufactured using natural, locally sourced base ingredients in our recently constructed Australian plant.

Titan XC is now available from Loveland Products! Designed to improve dry fertilizer efficiency, Titan XC is a new, next-generation biocatalyst for dry fertilizers that ‘unlocks’ applied nutrients, making them available more quickly so that more of them are taken up by plant roots. It is extra concentrated for easier application and superior impregnation onto fertilizer prill.

By Maud Hinchee, PhD, Chief Science Officer, Agricen Sciences

Getting a good start is key to a germinating seed’s need to “survive and thrive.” Essential to this process is establishing a root system that creates a strong foothold and provides access to available nutrients and water. But how does the emerging seedling root do this? 

It turns out that the new root is constantly making choices about where and when to grow based on the environment it encounters. Guided by its “root brain,” it makes decisions that maximize its access to water and nutrients as quickly as possible.  

by Steve Sexton, Agricen

Growers today are confronted with a large number of fertilizer additive options, including agricultural biostimulants. Too often, some of these products are lumped into the same category, despite different modes of action and varying impacts on crop yields and return on investment (ROI).

Humic Acid Products

Humic acid products are biostimulant products derived from leonardite (low grade coal) that is reacted with potassium hydroxide (KOH) to create a black liquid containing organic acids—primarily fulvic and humic. These organic acids are either long- chained molecules (humic acid) or short-chained molecules (fulvic acid) that contain sites carrying a negative charge. When a grower adds humic acid to a production program, it acts like a bucket—it will hold positively charged nutrients by attracting them to the negatively charged sites on its molecules. However, humic acid cannot fill the bucket with the nutrients the plant needs. This is where biochemical products, which are also biostimulants, play a critical role.