Contributing To The Solutions Conversation Through Partnerships

Pivot Bio was founded on the idea that there is a safer, more sustainable way to provide nitrogen to crops than relying solely on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. After years of research and testing in the laboratory, greenhouse, and fields, we’ve developed a product that harnesses naturally occurring microbes to fix atmospheric nitrogen and deliver it to cereal crops. While there’s nothing new about the mutually beneficial relationship between plant roots and soil microbes, it’s our job to prove that our products will perform in the field and exceed farmers’ expectations.

We are dedicated to science and providing independent data for our customers to review. To this end, we work with independent research organizations and partner with land-grant institutions. More than 20 land-grant institutions have tested our products over several years, including North Carolina State University, Iowa State University, Purdue University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Illinois, and we are partnering with even more in 2023. Collaborative research with land-grant institutions using structured protocols and standardized measurements facilitates testing across diverse environments and production systems. Data gathered from these trials can be combined with a larger body of data to better understand product performance across environments.

President Lincoln signed the first Morrill Land-Grant Act and established land-grant institutions in the mid-1800s to provide practical education in agriculture, science, and engineering. Land-grant institutions today offer a full spectrum of curricula, and these universities remain dedicated to providing science and research-based solutions for the complex problems. While all universities have research and education efforts, land-grant universities have yet another mission: Extension. Extension empowers farmers to put into practice what we learn through research. For more than 100 years, Extension efforts have evolved to meet the needs of communities with sustainable solutions that tackle changing concerns across the agricultural industry. Pivot Bio conducts multi-year research trials in partnership with land-grant institutions with confidence that university researchers will only connect farmers in their communities with practices that are best for their farming operations and the environment.

Not only do we fully support how land-grant institutions translate agricultural science into practical applications, we believe that our public-private research partnership is essential to help universities continue their critical research efforts. Pivot Bio is invested in ensuring educational institutions can continue research, education, and extension efforts in the face of budget cuts and tough decisions. With increasing demands on our farmers to produce and growing stress on our agricultural and natural resources, finding research-based answers to today’s most pressing questions is as important as ever. At Pivot Bio, we believe that science and technology that benefits farmers and the planet are foundational to solutions that meet our needs today without sacrificing the needs of future generations. Through public-private research partnerships, we can support the researchers who find the answers and demonstrate that our nitrogen-fixing microbes are a part of the solutions conversation. After all, solving the nitrogen dilemma will take great minds and concerted efforts from research and educational institutions and the private sector.

So far, multiple studies conducted through independent research organizations and land-grant institutions have demonstrated that our products consistently provide value to farmers. From greater biomass earlier in the growing season to increased yields and revenue, university data indicates that our products deliver strong performance under various growing conditions. Stay tuned as we explore the research conducted at different land-grant institutions across the country that put our products to the test to validate how they affect productivity, efficiency, and performance. We proudly provide trial summaries for our public-private research partnership agronomy studies so that every farmer can understand how Pivot Bio products can benefit their operation. In our next blog, we will take a close look at results with PROVEN 40 from trials conducted at North Carolina State University.