Who would have thought that electricity could help plants become stronger, richer in nutrients and yield more crops? Ag-tech startup XtrION does for plants what Elon Musk does for humans: connects them to electrodes and improves them. While Musk's Neuralink still needs to explain why they're doing it, XtrION has proof in the field: greater quantity, faster growth, improved nutritional value, longer shelf life and even resistance to pests and diseases, all thanks to electricity.
"We connect to the plant using electrodes and read it, just like an ECG in humans," says Matan Rosenfeld, the company's CEO. All in all, it makes sense when you think about it. Electricity is already used today for many treatments in humans, but in plants? Who would have thought of that.
"The processes we do in the plant improve it," says Rosenfeld. "We added 50% more iron to coriander, in strawberries we had 15% more sugar and 30% more fruit, and we're just at the tip of the tip in terms of understanding this amazing thing." If modern agriculture is based on four inputs - seed improvement, irrigation, pest protection, and fertilization - then at XtrION they say they have the potential to become an additional input for agriculture - electricity.
How does it work? The technology developed by the company is called TEF (Tailored Electrical Fields). It allows increasing the absorption of nutrients by the plant, enhancing the photosynthesis process, and accelerating its growth rate.
In the first stage, the electrodes enable receiving ongoing information about the plant's condition through a continuous graph that constantly tracks data such as material content, photosynthesis, and water quantity. Based on the data, you can see when the plant is in distress and send it self-treatment instructions: for example, to drink more water or absorb more potassium.
"This is a breakthrough capability because ultimately you're helping the plant draw food through the roots in a way it couldn't do before, you're intervening in its most central process. You're essentially improving all its processes, shortening the growth phase, improving its mineral balance, and increasing fruit quantity," adds Rosenfeld. According to him, the ability to increase yields and enrich food content in plants is the message the hungry world has been waiting for.
There's another positive effect of the electric current - it turns out that various pests don't really like the electric field surrounding the plant, and they simply keep their distance from it. That simple, without chemicals and poisons.
XtrION's technology is in the testing and proof of concept stage. The company's ideal partners are growers who work with hydroponics and detached media, meaning inside feeding facilities rather than in soil. The main reason for this is the conservatism of traditional farmers. Growers using innovative methods are also more open to introducing additional innovation.
The Dutch fell in love
In the two years the company has existed, the entrepreneurs have been jumping between growing areas and test fields in Israel. In a coriander growing trial, they managed to increase yield by 30% compared to regular growing. In a 'Leek' lettuce growing trial, they managed to achieve a 31% increase in yield. For farmers struggling to cope with increasing costs and shrinking returns, this could be big news.
The question that comes up in every conversation with the entrepreneurs is how complicated it is to operate, to connect thousands of electrodes to thousands of plants in a greenhouse.
Asaf Zerach, the company's COO, says that after talks with growers in Holland, this concern was completely dispelled: "They grow tomatoes, a plant that requires a lot of care throughout its growing life. Our addition doesn't burden at all and doesn't change the work process. We understood that not only will we not interfere, we'll actually become part of their regular and routine process."
Are there other companies offering technologies for electrifying plants?
Rosenfeld: "This field has been researched for many years, but always on an academic level. The results were impressive, but researchers didn't know how to turn it into something commercial. Currently, there's another company from Argentina that's at a very early stage, but they have very nice results, and a second company from Switzerland, but they only sample plants and analyze the data.
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"We sat with them and maybe there will be collaborations in the future. It's amazing news that we're not the only ones developing this thing, so people won't think we invented something imaginary."
Matan Rosenfeld and Asaf Zerach are longtime partners, owners of another company, established earlier, that provides unique lighting for agricultural crops. Appropriate lighting is a very important component in healthy growth, but not the only component.
"We got the idea from an article we saw," says Rosenfeld. "It described an experiment done in China where they electrified the air around plants in a greenhouse. There were promising results, you wouldn't believe it's real. The problem was that the amount of electricity was enormous, not economical in any way, and that it's very dangerous: if you go inside, you die."
The two recruited Dr. Roy Winter to the venture, who is a materials engineer, physicist, and brain researcher, and also a childhood friend. "When Asaf and Matan asked for my help in analyzing the article, I was researching chips that use electric fields to change molecular concentrations in the brain, as part of epilepsy treatment," says Dr. Winter.
"Our conversations led to the understanding that the physical principles behind the phenomena are similar, and that they can be applied in a system of plants and growing media. Within a few months, initial experiments began that proved the concept and laid the foundation for XtrION's technology."
'We have a relatively short time to raise the money'
Thanks to the agricultural lighting activity, the young company already had connections with farmers, agricultural marketing companies, and agricultural research institutes, and these now allowed them to bring the new ideas to people who might be interested. XtrION operates within the InNegev technology incubator. The incubator's manager, Arnon Columbus, is also the company's chairman.
To receive support funding from the Innovation Authority, they were asked to perform a proof of concept (POC) test under the supervision of an external entity - Panorot company. In one experiment, electricity increased basil yield by 20%, in another experiment plants received only a fifth of the regular fertilizer amount, but with the help of electricity, they were almost unaffected.
In the ag-tech world, development processes are long and funding sources are limited. It's not cyber and not AI, although there's no need to elaborate on the importance of food for humans. The company's first funding round included the Innovation Authority, InNegev incubator, a German fund, and an Israeli angel investor.
The total raise amounted to 2.5 million shekels. This year, the company applied for an additional grant from the Innovation Authority in a competitive process and won. The amount it will receive - 2.8 million shekels, is contingent on raising a matching amount from private investors, meaning a total of 5.6 million shekels. Part of this amount has already been raised by the company, and they are working on completing the amount these days. "We have a relatively short time to achieve this," says Rosenfeld, "we now have many conversations with investors."
What's on the company's roadmap? According to Rosenfeld, the new funding will allow the company to move to commercial production of the system, and within about six months to launch a commercial pilot, followed by the first commercial sale, and then the company can approach the next funding round, a seed round, of $4 million.
The connection of the new technology with new agriculture, both hydroponic and vertical (growing plants on vertical surfaces, inside containers), can contribute to the trend of improving agricultural produce quality and bringing it closer to the consumer, so that the plant is sold close to harvest, with fewer contaminants and poisons.
"If this succeeds as we dream, it's really a phenomenon that can change the world of agriculture. There won't be a farmer who won't have it. Just like there's a defibrillator in the streets of Tel Aviv, every greenhouse will want to use this technology to understand what's happening to the plant and treat it. Think where this could go within five years."