United Kingdom
June 21, 2024
The announcement follows recent senior appointments to Zayndu’s sales and engineering teams, as the firm is making significant strides in expanding sales of its ActivatedAir cold-plasma seed treatment and priming system.
Zayndu’s CEO, Ralph Weir, and Anne Williams
Anne Williams brings a wealth of industry experience. Her career started in crop protection before she moved to Monsanto, which has seen her work in the horticultural seed industry for the past ten years. She was the tomato global product manager at Monsanto and has been the head of protected crops at Bayer Vegetable Seeds since the acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer in 2018.
As the industry increasingly focuses on genetics to solve its agronomic challenges and increase yields, Anne believes that seed quality will also play a critical role.
“If you have good genetics, reaching the grower in great condition, then you get the best possible start for the crop,” says Anne. “There has been a lot of change in the demands of growers and what their crop cycles and management looks like. Healthy seeds with good vigour and germination get the whole process moving for a grower.
“ActivatedAir is a super interesting technology. It’s easy to use and green tech, which makes it very practical for operators to manage with no risk of exposure to harmful substances. It is also very adaptable to different crop species and varieties.
“It is clean, green and fast.”
Getting faster early growth and establishment is particularly helpful for leafy crops on a short growing cycle, explains Anne. Cutting a few days off each growing cycle could potentially mean fitting in an additional crop in a year, spreading a grower’s fixed costs and increasing profitability.
“A more even emergence also means it is easier to predict harvest times because you don’t have the frustration of waiting for the final percentage of the crop to be ready.
“For growers sowing into open fields, faster emergence means the crop is able to outcompete weeds better. You get better ground cover, which means you are much more efficient in terms of fertiliser, nutrient and water utilisation,” adds Anne.
Zayndu’s CEO, Ralph Weir, welcomes Anne to the board and is already witnessing the value she brings to the team.
“We are building a great depth of experience in the horticulture industry, plant science, seed technology and engineering to ensure that Zayndu is known for its knowledge and service as well as ActivatedAir,” says Ralph.
“Anne is a huge asset to the business. She is acutely aware of the challenges growers face and how enhancing seed quality can play an important part in solving them. We are delighted to be working with her as Zayndu enters an exciting chapter in its growth.”
About Zayndu:
Zayndu’s seed treatment and priming process harnesses cold plasma to create ActivatedAir™, the world’s first application of this technology on seeds. It maximises profits for controlled-environment agriculture growers by increasing yields and speeding up growing cycles.
ActivatedAir™ eliminates seed-borne pathogens, stopping them from contaminating growing facilities and reducing seedling diseases like damping off. It also kick-starts the seed’s metabolic processes, effectively priming it for sowing.
The idea for Zayndu came from collaborative work by Dr Felipe Iza’s research group at Loughborough University and industrial partners - who identified a growing unmet need for sustainable seed treatments that delivered increased productivity and plant health.
To exploit this opportunity, Zayndu was formed in 2019, and Ralph Weir was brought in to head up the company as CEO. A proof of concept was tested and established, and now ActivatedAirTM is fully commercially available.
Presently, ActivatedAir™ is being used by some of the biggest and most sophisticated vertical farms in the world, as well as more traditional greenhouses. The most common crops are leafy greens and micro greens, but the team has experience with a wide range of crops beyond these.
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