b'KENT LOVVORNCEO AND FOUNDER, VMEK SORTING TECHNOLOGYkent@vmek.com The Goldilocks Zone Works vmek.comin Agriculture Too!Walking a TightHAVE YOU EVERheard of theDevelopers of biological seed Goldilocks Zone? Youve all heardtreatment products, including Rope to Keep Ahead the fairy talea little girl stumblesABM, place a lot of emphasis on into a house, where everything inon-seed survival under standard the house is too big, too small,and adverse conditions because THERES ONE THINGfor sure that every company onand just right.while standard storage conditions the globe wants to do: stay relevant and stay innovative.The Goldilocks Zone is a termare known and can be accounted Why?co-opted by NASA to determinefor, survival under adverse condi-Staying relevant opens up your business to bethe perfect area for life to live intions will make your product a competitive. Thats why youll often hear business talkspace (i.e., a place that isnt tooreal winner. The type of biological about keeping ahead of the trend to continuously behot or too cold but just right). organism in a given product has a a trendsetter.What this has to do with biologi- little to do with how well it will sur-To keep ahead of the trend, we dont just listen tocals can be found in thinking aboutvive on the seed under various stor-what our customers want. We try to ask the question:on seed viability. Weve talkedage conditions, but more important What does our client want to accomplish? so we canextensively about how biologi- is how that organism is product and anticipate their needs.cals survive in the soil and even inhow it is formulated. These param-Keeping ahead of the trend and anticipating whattandem with hard chemistries, buteters have a great deal to do with a customer wants before they ask means towing a bitwhat happens after the seed ishow resilient a biological is to dry of a dangerous line, though. Its hard to tell beforehandtreated and before its planted? on-seed conditions, co-application if the trend is going to turn out to be a success, or ifEven after a biological is applied,with chemistry, varying humidity you are too ahead of the curve to start the trend. It allit does not always go straight intolevels and time.comes down to timing. the ground. Sometimes that seedSeeds are resilient and can, for In May 2016, we went to market with the Abacusmight sit around for a while in athe most part, handle adverse stor-High-Speed Counter, which we developed to accuratelywarehouse or barn before gettingage conditions, and a germination count corn and soybeans at 1,000 seeds per second.planted. Once it does get planted,failure is pretty obvious. Rhizobia We got a lot of stir initially, with folks saying how incred- the seed and its biological treat- and Trichoderma need some special ible the machine was. But it was the question that camement need to thrive as if it were theprotection either from their formu-after the initial excitement that was heartbreaking forday the seed was originally treated. lation, production methods, storage us: What do we do with that? Because of all of this, the bio- conditions or some combination of We had a machine we were proud of, and was reallylogical needs to have great on seedthese.ahead of the game, but we ran into difficulty when itvigor to survive. It needs to be ableWhile it may seem silly to say came to the customer mindset. Instead of having theto survive in conditions that mightsomething needs to be just right, excitement throughout our whole marketing launch, wenot be ideal for it but keeps it kick- its key for the survivability of your actually ended up having to change mindsets to showing until it gets in the ground. biologicals and key to better crop customers how this high-speed counter could work onThat is where the Goldilocks Zoneyields and productivity. their site. In the end, the risk was worth the reward. comes into play in agriculturefor And that wasnt the only time that excitement overseed, it needs a good home while the idea of a product was shadowed by the difficulty ofbeing stored. It needs to be not too trying to see how to implement it, and it certainly wonthot or too cold and not too wet be the last time that happens.or too dry but just right. As long as we continue to work to stay ahead of the trend and anticipate our customers needs, well keep running the risk of creating a product with cool, innova-tive technology that might not have a market. On theMOLLY CADLE-DAVIDSONflip side, the market could be huge.CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER, ABMAre you willing to take the risk to stay ahead of the trend? mollycadle-davidson@abm1st.comabm1st.comJUNE 2021SEEDWORLD.COM /27'