iyris achieves plant science breakthrough to help solve global food crisis

Business a.m.

iyris, the sustainable AgTech leader, has announced an unprecedented, deep-tech, scientific process breakthrough to deliver more resilient and reliable produce.

 This makes it easier to grow the likes of tomatoes – one of the world’s biggest fresh produce and processing crops – in environments increasingly impacted by climate change. The patented process, which tackles the challenges of hot climates, has the potential to revolutionize where crops are grown to address global food security issues.

The newly patented polyploid hybridization grafting process – mimics and significantly accelerates the natural evolutionary process of breeding genetic resilience into plant rootstocks. With this groundbreaking innovation, farmers can address, without having to change the way that they farm their land, their most urgent need: reliable, resistant crops that can mitigate and combat climate change.

In addition, the pioneering technology makes crops more resilient to stressful abiotic environments (e.g., salt, drought, heat and pests) delivering higher yields for farmers and reducing crop failure risk. The timescale and predictability of genetic resilience trait integration is significantly accelerated compared to previous methods. 

Commercial trials of iyris’ current hybrid grafted diploid rootstocks, delivered an average 20-25 percent tomato plant yield increase over the best performing commercial alternatives. Expectations are that using this patented polyploid breeding process, yield increases will be even more significant. Results to date have demonstrated that polyploids can double yields when compared to diploids. 

Uniquely, iyris’ plant science innovation allows multiple plant traits to be integrated simultaneously. Previously, scientists and breeders targeted single traits and experienced low predictability rates for even a single integration.

Commenting on the innovation, John Keppler, executive chairperson of iyris, remarked:  “These achievements in plant science are unprecedented and a significant moment in our mission to feed the world sustainably. iyris can now offer farmers a commercially validated and reliable solution addressing the environmental and economic challenges of today – in tomatoes alone, that’s worth billions of dollars annually.  

“We are delighted to be in a position to commercialize this patented process, and are excited to be working with leading horticulture brands who have already seen the value of our solutions. As a pure-play deep tech company focused on commercializing and developing AgTech solutions, our plant science developments are hard evidence of iyris’ world-leading position in agriculture.” 

iyris’ published rootstock patent – ‘Polyploidization of interspecific tomato hybrids to create stable and fertile rootstocks’ follows decades of work and research, most recently at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), led by iyris co-founder, Professor Mark Tester – the world’s pre-eminent plant scientist. Professor Tester’s thesis developed from research (with his then – PhD student, Yveline Pailles) into resilient relatives of the tomato growing on sea-facing rock faces in the Galapagos Islands.  

With increasing global temperature, and dwindling freshwater resources, ground-breaking innovative agriculture solutions are vital to break the food-water-energy nexus. The impact of climate change on global farming is becoming starker every year, and global food production is estimated to need to increase by 50%, by 2050, to feed soaring population rates. iyris’ innovation is perfectly timed given its potential to change the way that crops are grown, allow sustainable agriculture in previously unviable territories for farming and protect farmers from crop failure risk. 

With its resilient hybrid tomato rootstocks already available in the market, iyris has proven the commercial viability of their technology in open-field trials. iyris has partnerships with two of the world’s largest tomato producers, with more commercial agreements to come. iyris hybrid rootstocks outperformed the best available alternatives across multiple crop seasons, hybrid tomato rootstocks sales have already exceeded 1 million units. 

The market context is extremely positive. The processed tomato market (2023 data) is estimated at $51.8 billion with 182 million tonnes produced annually. iyris and Tester have already started research into other plant groups such as eggplants, melons and pumpkins, with the potential to increase commercial results and improve resilience exponentially. There is no limit on the market opportunity for iyris – which could transform the livelihoods of farmers globally and the communities in which they operate. 

Mark Tester, co-founder at iyris and Professor of Plant Science at KAUST, said:  “Over hundreds of years, farmers have invested their time, money and land into each crop season hoping the weather – over which they have no control – will allow their farm to be financially sustainable. At iyris we are beginning to solve this problem. Our non-GMO, patented process – which has been honed over many decades of research and proved as commercially viable – is set to be transformative for global agriculture. The potential impact that is hard to quantify.” 

iyris’ resilient hybrid tomato rootstocks are part of the company’s comprehensive proprietary deep tech platform – enabling sustainable agriculture in hot climates, through drop-in solutions.  The objective is to empower farming operations, improving profit margins and enhancing produce quality sustainably.