Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies (AST) is a socially conscious biotechnology company addressing one of the greatest limitations to agricultural and natural ecosystems globally; drought, salty soils, and temperature stresses. Their approach is based on more than 150 years of research on symbiotic interactions between plants and microorganisms.

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Over the last 20 years, the AST team of scientists has discovered that certain types of symbiotic fungi, known as endophytes, are capable of conferring several benefits to plants including tolerance to drought, salt, and temperature stress. With this knowledge, we have developed a series of microbial seed and plant treatments to confer these stress tolerances to crop plants.

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AST’s first line of products, BioEnsure™, has been developed for multiple crop lines. Benefits provided by this new line encompass five paramount areas of successful crop production: improved seed germination; enhanced seedling growth and development; increased stress tolerance; decreased water and fertilizer usage; and increased crop yield.

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They are currently in their third season of field testing these products in different climate zones and soil types across the United States. The results have been very positive with yield increases up to 85% in BioEnsure™ treated plants (compared to untreated plants when exposed to severe drought conditions).

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AST’s vision is to improve agricultural sustainability and farmers’ profitability by developing novel technologies to mitigate the impacts of climate variability. Their intent is to make this technology available to small and large-scale farmers in first world and developing nations. They believe that increasing agricultural sustainability and crop yields will decrease human hardship and lead to more social and political stability around the globe.