Catch up with Lucent Biosciences’ Chief Product Officer Jason McNamee on the Growing the Future podcast with host Dan Aberhart.
The Growing the Future Podcast features top entrepreneurs in the agricultural industry, brought to you by Aberhart Ag Solutions, who want to plant the seeds of ideas and share great conversations in the agricultural space.
In this newest episode Jason and Dan talk about our tech, our research trials, the importance of bottom line, and the journey of how our start up has grown so much in three years.
Quintessentially Canadian Jason is our energetic leader of product innovation. Originally from Saskatchewan Jason’s education in Regina led him to geotechnical/ environmental consulting in British Columbia as well as deep sea research up and down the pacific northwest. When he is not facilitating the creation of our product, Soileos®, you can find him coaching Lucent staff on how to improve their slap shot or off the grid landing a fish with his sons.
"The captain of your team doesn't have to be the smartest, doesn't have to be the guy putting all the goals in the net or anything but definitely has to be the hardest worker and the most honest communicator. I think that really defines the leadership here at good old Lucent BioSciences."
Listen here to learn more about Jason and product development at Lucent BioSciences:
If you don’t have time for a listen right now check out these highlights from Jason’s conversation:
“We found a way to deliver micronutrients to the microbiome in such a way that they don’t tie up, they don’t leach, they are actually effective, and they are delivered to the plant from the microbiome in a timely manner which allows the plant to really optimize its genetic potential.”
“It's those microbes that have a symbiotic relationship with the crop that you're trying to grow. But it's not that your microbes in your soil are only feeding your crop, but the reverse also happens where that crop is also feeding your soil microbiome. So, the healthier your microbiome is, the better the opportunity that you have to maximize the genetic potential in those lovely seeds that you bought at the start of the season.”
“When we think of synthetic fertilizers, they've done amazingly good things for humans on the planet and some not so good things, but they limit the ecological function of your soil - we have started understanding who's who in the microbiome and how that microbiome feeds the plant and how the plant feeds that microbiome. Can we evolve and make better products that not only improve our yield but also decrease the cost of our inputs and improve our soil health? Well of course we can.”
“Right now, we’re mostly developing a pelletized solution. The reason for that is that biomass pellets are much better than granules so our pellets are relatively the same size as a typical granule. We've been running 20-to-40-acre trials this year from Ohio to Alberta on corn, lentils, soybeans, canola and wheat and we've been running it primarily through air seeders. So, it's just a pellet right now for broadacre application but we're also working on another technology where we can coat seeds with, so you have your early season fertility right where the crop needs it to help with early season germination and health. And we're also working on another product where we can coat NPK granules with the material, so we get a better distribution.”