A natural nitrogen-fixing technology developed by UK based Azotic Technologies is set to be launched commercially in North America this autumn.
The launch follows completion of extensive trials, under the Envita Growing Programme, across approximately 3,000 acres involving 58 farmers growing either corn or soybeans. Feedback from the growers and the initial results from these trials are extremely encouraging.
Envita is a naturally occurring food grade bacteria (Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus) that enables plants to fix nitrogen from the air and replace up to 50 per cent of their nitrogen needs as an alternative to fertiliser. It is environmentally-friendly, cost-reducing and is also proven to increase crop yields. The technique is registered by the UK’s biggest organic certifier, the Soil Association.
Commercialisation of rice in Asia is also on the company’s agenda. Three rice trials have recently been carried out in Vietnam; the overall response was a mean average 15% yield increase across all the field trials. Further rice trials are being carried out in Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.
Azotic was founded in 2012 to commercialise the technology discovered initially nearly 20 years ago by Professor Edward Cocking, Fellow of the Royal Society and Director at the Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation at the University of Nottingham.
Peter Blezard, CEO of Azotic, said: “The Envita Growing Programme trials were highly encouraging, still with some verification of the results to come. This should prove beyond all doubt the efficacy of our revolutionary technology in making crops nitrogen-fixing and with the resulting increased yields.”
The official commercial launch of Envita will be at the Agriculture 4.0 conference in San Francisco on 15th and 16th November 2018, where Azotic’s CEO Peter Blezard has been invited to make a keynote speech to 2000 delegates entitled “Nature’s nitrogen will fix planet’s food needs”.
On 8th June 2018, BBC World Service featured Azotic in major coverage entitled ‘Making food crops that feed themselves” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44357673
The accompanying BBC broadcast is at
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews/videos/2005856056100177/
Picture: US Envita corn crop trial site