Ginkgo Bioworks and Agricen announced the successful completion of their initial collaboration to develop and optimize a low-cost, efficient fermentation process for complex bacterial strains used as a component in one of Agricen’s soil amendment products.

For over 20 years, Agricen has been developing and novel biological and soil amendment technologies that they say increase nutrient availability in the soil, improve crop uptake of essential nutrients, help plants better tolerate abiotic stress and enhance soil biome function.

The new collaboration with Ginkgo enables Agricen to produce microbes in one of its soil amendment products faster and more efficiently.

“Ginkgo’s unique approach to process development and optimization brought an efficiency for developing a custom fermentation process that we didn’t see with other toll producers,” said Michael Totora, president and CEO of Agricen. “This is work that we would typically do in-house, but we are always looking for ways to be more operationally efficient. We saw what Ginkgo’s team offered and enlisted them to do what they are experts at – simplifying processes with challenging microbes.”

Ginkgo’s platform supports partners at various stages of bioprocess development: from media and process screening at small and intermediate scales to commercial-scale manufacturing at volumes ranging from 20 liters to 3000 liters.