338 - Plastics and Fuels from Camelina
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Kevin Folta: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. And welcome to the podcast this week. We're going to talk about a plant that has been increasing impact, I guess is the best word. When we look at applications in biotechnology, that benefit mankind and it's a plant. You probably don't know. But a plant that's very well known by yield 10 bio-science and other organizations and universities, other researchers.

So today we're talking about camelina and innovation inside camelina we're speaking with Dr. Ali peoples he's the president and CEO of yield 10 bio-science. And we're going to cover this interesting plant. So welcome to the podcast Dr. People. 

Olly Peoples: Nice to 

Kevin Folta: be with you. Yeah. Thank you for being here. This is a topic that I've been excited about for a long time, because there are so many researchers making everything from plastics to jet fuel from this plant.

And I have so many questions about it and you know what the heck it is. So let's start out with what that is. What is Camelot? Yeah. So, 

Olly Peoples: you [00:01:00] know, Catalina's an oil seed. That's it's a S it's a prob this historically being produced in Northern Europe as a sort of a specialty food crop is used. You know, basically you can crush it, crush the seed and you can.

An envelope oil, and, and of course the residual protein meal was obviously you as an animal feed. And so historically that's what has been used for and it's been used by, you know, humanity for, for, for focuses of 

Kevin Folta: yours. And it sounds a lot like canola. 

Olly Peoples: Yes. You know, that's, it's, it's, it's, you know, I hate to say this, but it's like canola without the steroids.

So canola is a very souped up version of rapeseed and canola really was developed. By using traditional plant breeding over about 30 years to produce what they call the canola quality rapeseed. And that basically means it's going to very healthy edible oil as well as a protein. That's very, very attractive for for animal feed, particularly for dairy cattle.

Kevin Folta: So camelina is something that has been grown for you. You [00:02:00] mentioned a long time in Northern Europe, but why, where is it being cultivated in and is it still being used for oil or animal feed anywhere in north America or anywhere else 

Olly Peoples: in the world? So it's been usually some speed. It's really able to see an emerging crop.

There's quite a lot growing up. There's a lot of more activity in north America and you'll tend has been working with camelina for over a decade. I would just say, you know, we are very, very excited about the future prospects of Catalina. You know, you mentioned the canola, canola's quite fortuitous because, you know, maybe if you let me leave you kind of Molina.

Canola when it was rapeseed on what we can do today with new technologies is really accelerate the, the the domestication of it and make it into a very high performing crop using some of the modern tools of 

Kevin Folta: biotechnology. And that's where I really wanted to focus on today because camelina has become such a prominent crop in so many venues.

And what is it about camelina that makes it such an attractive target for [00:03:00] innovation with biotechnology? 

Olly Peoples: Yeah, there's really two sides to that. Let me take the sort of first 30 fundamental reasons for that one is it's a very fast growing crop. It's going to, you know, the, the sort of seed to harvest, you know, plant the seed, plant the seed to harvest.

It sees somewhere around a hundred and a hundred, 110 days. And that makes it very attractive as a rotation crop, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Where some of the limitations are really just the, just the lens of the growing season or the number of, for your days. It also makes it attractive as a cover crop.

This is something that's going to, it's really of increasing importance in agriculture, particularly as we seek to reduce the claim impact and the carbon footprint of producing the major commodity crops like corn and soybean. And that's an area where camelina has just enormous potential as a cover crop to enable a second crop.

Kevin Folta: What makes it a good cover crop? Because I know that most cover crops have some distinct qualities about them that make them a good cover crop. What about. 

Olly Peoples: Well, what's interesting about [00:04:00] it. And I think what makes it stand head and shoulders above the rest is, you know, a cup of coffee today is although it's increasing slowly driven by, you know, basically government incentives to reduce nutrient runoff and to protect, to protect the soil.

You know, really there hasn't been a cash cover crop. In other words, the cover crop that would enable the farmer to generate additional revenue. And so. When farmers plant the cotton crop cover crops, they typically apply them on because there's more value in those crops. But with camelina you can still play, you can, you can basically harvest the grain or the seed if you like, and that can be processed oil and protein today, and then into some differentiated products in the future.

And that really generates a, a very important value driver economic value driver to enable if any way, scale adoption of cover crops by far. 

Kevin Folta: No, that's very good. I, you know, I really was remiss in not even mentioning, you know, what is a cover crop, but cover crops are these crops that are these plants?

I should say that a farmers will grow in counter seasons. So [00:05:00] counter seasonal growth to cover the space, you know, reduces weeds. It can, in some cases, have a Lila pathic qualities to reduce weeds and nematodes and other, other critters. And sometimes we'll have extensive root systems and basically you can plow it under and make a richer, more organic soil by using a cover crop.

So just to throw that out there, so camelina fits in that category. I never heard of it used as a cover crop here in Florida as it so it's pretty much just a Northern. 

Olly Peoples: Well, you know, it's interesting. So I would say, you know, really what's changed for camelina is a number of things. One of course is always.

The global population growth, the demand for more protein, the demand for more edible oils and the demand for healthier and villains. You know, those are one big driver. The other big driver is obviously driven by the desire to reduce the carbon footprint of renewable, basically of diesel fuel and aviation fuel.

And so there's a tremendous amount of it, of new demand for vegetable oil being created in north America. Which can only be supplied by vegetable oils, [00:06:00] probably grown and produced in north America. And that's creating, you know, a demand for somewhere. We estimate somewhere around an additional 5 billion gallons of vegetable oil production.

And for your audience, you know, that's a lot particularly, particularly the, you know, given that the global production of vegetable Lyles is somewhat around 50 billion gallons per year, you know, so obviously when you add this new demand, And you look at what would it take to supply that demand, you know, just to give you some benchmarks.

So one example I heard from one of the big seed companies recently is that would be the equivalent of adding 60 million acres of additional soybean production. Well, that's not going to happen. And it could be, you can also add, you know, someone around, you know, another 30 million pounds of canola production and that's not going to happen, but what you are going to see.

And I think it's important for yield 10. Just, just be clear that you're going to see more interest in increasing the yield of soybean and canola, and you're going to see more interest in increasing [00:07:00] the oil content of the seat, because obviously it's the oil that's actually creating all this new demand.

But for camelina, what it really does is it provides the most important driver driver, which is market pool. And the reason for that is Catalina can be grown in areas where, you know, crops like the royalties, like canola and soybean, don't just don't do so well. And so really the Pacific Northwest and some of the dry regions, it can actually be grown as a overwintered in places like Georgia, Florida, and areas like that.

And we were actually doing a lot of testing of our Catalina varieties in those regions this year. And so, you know, what it really does is it opens up. Potentially the fourth crop in the fourth major crop, new crop in the us. And I think that's really something to get excited about because that opens up just tremendous opportunity for innovation in a crop that's relatively new, but already is economically viable where the upside potential to improve it as is.

Kevin Folta: Is there anything about the oil that makes it [00:08:00] particularly useful in comparison to other vegetable oils? 

Olly Peoples: Yeah. So, so a nutrition there is, it's actually similar to flaxseed oil in that it's got, it's got one of the key omega-3 fatty acids, ELA. And so it has about, you know, it's got quite a lot, a lot of ALS about half as much as in place it but interesting thing about camelina.

With this ale is that that's actually become pretty attractive in particularly in the vet market for horses and. Where it provides joint and another health benefits to those animals. It's also becoming quite interesting and attractive in you know, for human consumption in terms of just Amanda oil that can be used for salad dressings.

And it has a, quite a nice nutty flavor. So that's really, you know, I would say there's a ward niche opportunities. But obviously that has been a driver over the last few. But to be perfectly honest, not that demand is actually being completely swamped by this. You interested in biofuels. 

Kevin Folta: And, and that was really where I was [00:09:00] going was, you know, what is it that makes camelina oil better as a biofuel or, you know, I've heard before that they use this in high-performance jet fuel, for instance.

So what is it that makes camelina a little bit better than say squeezing. 

Olly Peoples: Yeah. So I, you know, I wouldn't say it's, it's not actually that it's better than the fuel is just the potential to add a large amount of additional oil production in north America using camelina through cover cropping and or in geographies where, you know, canola and soy just don't do well is actually very high.

And so the, we, the week to look at it in the cover crops, cropping situation, Estimates that you could literally increase the oil produced per acre on a soybean acre, in a single growing. Bye run to a hundred percent. I mean, that's a big deal. So when you don't have more land than the fact honorable land is actually it's going down the field level.

Our [00:10:00] land, our land for crops is going down year over year due to population growth and infrastructure, then you need to be more efficient in how you use that land on a crop like Catalina, that can be grown off season as a cover crop and can actually support this demand for. 

Kevin Folta: Yeah, I can see why, because you're not using more land for it.

You're using the land that's fallow in an off season. So you're double cropping for the farmer to give a new crop you're producing green biomass that can be brought back in and then saving a seed crop that has some value that it really seems to achieve many objectives. It 

Olly Peoples: really does. And I think, you know, one of the it's a saga.

I mean, we haven't really factored in the potential. You know, climate change benefits of just large scale Kroeber cover cropping of camelina that remains to be, you know, to be quantified and my shorter as we go forward and build this, this industry. But, but suddenly it seems to check all the boxes and keep in mind, there is an oil seed.

And so the core product from the second season, if you like [00:11:00] is actually high quality protein, and one of the big drivers in. Demand that growth is it's really increased protein production. So it's a case of off season, not competing with a major food drops and you're getting essentially a biofuel feeds.

Plus you're adding to the protein pill for human nutrition. 

Kevin Folta: Very cool. Now, one of the things I've read a lot about camelina is its suitability for biotechnology. So how it could be easily transformed or changed. Is that true? I mean, is this really a very agile crop with respect towards transgenics or gene editing?

Olly Peoples: Yeah. So, you know, you'll tend is you know, we're kind of a pioneer in that space and so I can tell you it's true. Because a lot of what's been done has been done by, by yield tan or through our partners. I might give you a couple of examples. So, you know, one of the big questions in, in, in crop technology and seed sector is, you know, how far could you really [00:12:00] push yields?

If you simply said, let's ignore that. Let's ignore some of the regulatory challenges. Don't just ask the question. Technically, how far could you push yield in terms of engineering crops to just make them more efficient at using the carbon dioxide that they've captured shown there. And so, you know, a few years ago we developed a really unique system to add an entirely new carbon capture pathway into the seeds.

And we were able to show in the lab. That we could actually more than double CGO. So, you know, that was probably not suitable for commercialization, but what it exemplify was the potential of gene modification. To enhance this crops performance way beyond what would it have been expected? So since that time, you know, you'll turn has been working on yield traits, also genetic engineering, both using traditional GMO, but also using the genome editing technology.

And now for example, one of our lead [00:13:00] varieties that we have in the early stages of commercial. As a camelina , this was developed by Udall tenant scientists. We use the CRISPR genome editing tool to modify the activity of eight out of nine specific genes. And when we did that, we found we had a much higher performing camelina in the field with a four or 5% higher.

And a nice yellow seed color, all of which are really differentiating in terms of the varieties that you'll tennis developed. And that was done using genome editing and in, in the U S and more recently in Argentina, we just got that approved as non-regulated. And so that's really just one example of what you can do.

You know, one of the things that differentiates you'll 10, in addition to pursuing the near term opportunity and renewable fuels is really looking at, Camberley not saying this is a crop, that's not produced a very large scale, and it's not really part of the global [00:14:00] export market where you have to worry about regulations and China and Europe and all the political shenanigans that go on with all of that.

This is a crop that's ideal. For making UC products on, we are pursuing two, these are two product traits and I'll put a trade is a trait is essentially a, a genetic system, which would introduce them to the plant, allows the plant to do something different on the seed traits are usually increasing yield, modifying the oil, increasing the protein and that, that type of thing.

But in the case of yield 10, what we are doing is. And we've actually done this and actually grew it in the field for the last two years. We've actually introduced a set of genes for bioplastic production that came from nature. We've introduced those into camelina and we have actually camelina that are producing PHA bioplastic in the field.

And so, you know, there's a big push these days to, you know, made from plants. Well, I [00:15:00] think they're a step beyond that RPAC bioplastic is going to be made by plants. And the beauty of that technology is we can use an unlimited resource called CO2 as the feed stock. We can work with farmers for growing contracts, and then we can process that seed to produce this bioplastic.

Plus oil for renewable fuels, plus protein for food. And that's really, you know, that's, that's the sort of strategic, obviously medium to longer term goal of yield tan, but we'd be nicely doing this. And I wouldn't feel trials for the last two years pretty successfully. So we're very optimistic about it.

And that's, what's unique about camelina is the ability to engineer it, to do these, to solve these very large macro problems of, you know, really tied, very deeply to sustainable. 

Kevin Folta: Well, just as more of a technical note. So camelina is a brassica it's very similar to canola, but also related to a rabbit opposites.

Is it transformable by dipping the flowers or is there more to it? It is indeed. 

Olly Peoples: [00:16:00] It's very transformative. You know, we are very efficient at doing that is, yeah, it's a, it's a really, it's, it's essentially what it is, is the way we view it is it's really like a rabbit Opsis, which is like the lab point.

Except that has good. iGrant on. For a performance in the field and obviously very high upside potential. So it's a very exciting 

Kevin Folta: crop. Oh, that's very good. I'm going to wrap it up. So scientist by training and I always think of the floral dip is the day I read this black magic was the day that my life changed, where I didn't have to do.

Oh yeah. You know, getting me out of tissue culture and, you know, dipping flowers and bacteria. It was good times. We're speaking with Ali peoples on the talking biotech podcast. And we're talking about camelina. What is it? And where is it going? This is a talking biotech podcast by collabora. We'll be back in.

And now we're back on the talking biotech podcast by collabora. We're speaking with Ali [00:17:00] peoples of yield 10 and Dr. Peeples is describing to us, what is this thing called? Camelina. And why is it taking a bigger role? In agronomy as a potential crop that can kind of serve as the Swiss army crop. It produces a Annabelle oil, but also protein for animal feed, and also can be used as a vehicle for a variety of different products.

And before the break we were talking about it's increasing yields and I know a few people are probably screaming at their seat, seated their radio or their place. They're listening to the podcast. You mentioned, you found an alternative way to capture carbon. What is that? 

Olly Peoples: Yeah, so, you know, you'll tend to history.

I give you a little bit of background on the company. You'll kind of see where we are coming. You know, what's unique about us and what we brought into the crop space, which is, I think one of our leading technology differentiations. So really, you know, I was a founder of a company called metabolic, which was the.[00:18:00] 

I would say industrial biotech company. We spun out of MIT back in the nineties and we built a platform around engineering organisms to produce PHA. Bio-plastics a white family of naturally degradable polyesters. And in doing that, we really built. But a lot of what would be obviously the leading capability in advanced synthetic biology and when it became a yield 10 in, in 2017.

And it was really based on applying those same principles to camelina and I'm using then the tools of genetic engineering and including the more recently developed CRISPR genome editing system, as a way to look at Catalina and ask some really important questions about. You know, accelerate the development of the scrub to make it a very high performance, high yield, high oil content seed.

And one of the things we did is. As we started asking some hard questions around, you know, what, what, what's, [00:19:00] what's wrong with it. What's wrong with this plant as it is and what could we do about it? And, and one of the things that's interesting about camelina is, you know, it's like all plants photosynthetic, so it takes carbon dioxide out of the ER, on it, captures it in the leaves and then it makes sugars and it transport those to the seed.

And then the sugars get broken down to make the molecules and resolve. The seeds. But during that process, a lot of that carbon that was initially captured by photosynthesis is released on the it's released the CO2 back into the atmosphere. And so it's one of the, like having an apartment block, that's got 10, 10, 10 apartments, but only collecting rent on two of them.

And Camela, you know, appliance or with that particular type of photosynthesis or sort of late night, you've got, you know, half more than half of the CO2 that comes into the plant where you explained it. All our energy actually goes straight back on again, and it doesn't end up in the product. And so what we did is we decided, well, all this CO2 is being produced as the seats develop.

What if we introduced I [00:20:00] knew. You know, enzyme path and use of PAMI pathway. They took that carbon dioxide and actually just rebuilt it back into the seed metabolism. And to do that, what we did is we, we assembled are not me, but my, my scientists assembled, I think, 10 or 11 different enzyme activities and created an entire new carbon fixation system.

And introduce this specifically, Justin to the seed. And when we did that, obviously a lot of that CO2 that would normally have been released and then therefore wasted actually ended up in the form of protein and oil and then seeds. And so that's really how. You know, we're able to sort of demonstrate the potential of synthetic biology to more than double the sealed.

Kevin Folta: Wow. That's pretty cool. But have you tried doing this in other crops? Like you know, soybeans or other, other Poplar trees for instance. Yeah. Yeah. 

Olly Peoples: That gets really bad. So I don't want to interrupt you, but that kind of gets back to something you said earlier about the ease of genetic manipulation [00:21:00] and Catalina is just really easy to.

To manipulate in this way on, on some of these other, you know, some Chile Paul flow or even so, I mean, those are much more challenging to genetically engineer. And so, you know, you've got to I would say confluence of different things going on with camelina. One is it's already a pretty good crop.

It has good oil has good protein too. It's very readily genetically engineered and three you've got you know, companies like seal 10 with this advanced synthetic biology capability. That we're able to then use June technology is to just really change. The prospects of this crop and enhancing for commercial 

Kevin Folta: production.

Oh, very good. That makes a lot of sense. Having the agile ability to adjust it makes it so much more of a useful crop. You mentioned this thing called PHA plastics. And can you tell me more about what that is that you mentioned? So, you know, it's a type of natural polyester. Give me a little more information on that and what that might [00:22:00] replace by making it more prevalent among a crop that we could grow.

Olly Peoples: Yeah. So, so one of the, you know, as I said, you know, PNT bio-plastics, so they're really natural polymers. I mean, a bit like starch is kind of the it's the carbon and energy storage and corn and vegetable oil is the energy and carbon storage material in seeds. In some bacteria they produce I a along, you know, a high molecular weight, a very long chain, polyester, cold poly hydroxy.

O'Connor, that's just technical name. And it serves the same function as oil and the seeds are starch in, in car. However, when you, when you extracted it is a chemically, a polyester, and what that means is you can actually use polyester, you know, obviously plastic polio. Processing technology so you can melt it and you can shape it into various articles.

And so one of the, you know, for example, we made pens and, and so, so once it's [00:23:00] taken over the once it's taken out of the biological system that produced it, it just behaves like any other polyester. And so you can melt process it into any kind of, you know, shaped article. You know, flat, we are nice for students.

You can make trays with it. You can make tapes, you can make films, you can make, you know, you can make a wide range of items that all intents and purposes look like, feel like and behave like the plastics we use, you know, for packaging and food service. But they're natural. And because they're natural, if the end up in the environment, they will completely naturally biodegrade away.

So it's essentially a replacement for a wide range of plastics used in food, packaging and food services. Which is fully biodegradable and environment, not surprising because it's a natural product. And so it just goes away over time and you don't have the plastic pollution associated with petroleum 

Kevin Folta: plastics.

And th that's really [00:24:00] exciting. And I I've heard of similar things happening and maybe, you know, to push back a little here that they've done an algae and engineering and algae. And so what would be the big advantage of something like a terrestrial plant? Like camelina over growing. That would grow potentially and, you know, big vats or, you know, for mentors.

Yeah. I mean, 

Olly Peoples: I, I think the allergy story, so let me be, be careful what I say so I can, I can give you my own opinion. So what I can tell you is if you want to make a lot of stuff, very low cost, you can not be agriculture, which means farming crops, right? I mean, if you look at the polar bear, that's probably the most prevalent in the world at cellulose.

Second is probably stopped. On starches as Illinois is a very low cost. And it's produced in a very, very large scale. There's a lot of interest analogy, but quite frankly, you know, the, the, the, the challenge of biology is not that you can do the genetic engineering to enable it, to make something.

The challenge with allergy is can never do it at a cost that anybody can. [00:25:00] And so you'll see a lot of effort analogy for biofuels, but what tends to happen with these these, these activities, they then eventually Morphin to consumer products or cosmetics or personal care items. In other words, they migrate to more niche-y higher volume applications, more consistent with the economics of production.

And so, you know, I think. There's areas who are allergy making a lot of sense, but if you want to compete with the cost and the scale of commodity petroleum plastics you know, allergy is really just not going to get you there, whereas camelina, you know, you can scale that fairly readily just by growing more acres.

And you've got a very cost-effective way of producing. You know, the PJ via plastic has a third C product C product along with the integrated economic. Of the being a cool product. And so, you know, I think that the promise of that is really very large scale. Low-cost and I think, you know, that's, that's the winning ticket in the [00:26:00] plastic space.

No, that's 

Kevin Folta: really great. I, I didn't want to you know, have you have to throw algae under the bus, but I was, I 

Olly Peoples: wanted to bring, I, you know, I, I, I want to try to do is it's like a lot of things. There's lots of technologies. Some of them make a lot of sense for a niche specialty products. You know, the cost of developing and and really, you know, going through all the regulatory approvals, et cetera, for a crop just don't make a lot of.

But the cost structure is very attractive and I'll go system, which is obviously, you know, in, in contained types or pawns. And so it's really, you know, horses for courses kind 

Kevin Folta: of thing. Now really it's really good. I, I just wanted to make clarify, because we've had guests on before who talk about algae and plastic production and just for the listeners of the podcast.

So you can differentiate and really understand the limitations and strengths of each system. That that's the main reason I ask the question. I think 

Olly Peoples: it would be useful to just provide you with a little color on that. So I was one of the metabolic. We actually built a world scale [00:27:00] bioplastic fermentation facility, which today's actually using algae to produce an omega-3 island.

And what we discovered as a little, we could really make the product very high specification. Use it to make a wide range of plastic articles. The cost of production was simply too high on. So, you know, the merits of the product have to be married with essentially, you know, a cost structure and a scale that makes sense for the business opportunity.

And, and that's really what the crops. 

Kevin Folta: Now. Very good. And right now, along the same line, we're, we're in a time where if you've put gasoline in the tank of your car or your diesel in your truck or diesel for your tractor lately, you know, the prices are quite high. And so where is really the break point before something like camelina could become a very realistic bio-diesel replacing.

Olly Peoples: Yeah. So actually I think we're there. I mean, not serve you. We are actually, I would say starting the commercial development of our lead [00:28:00] varieties. And you know, and, and, and, and I think, you know, we're very excited about we, we just hired a head of seed operations to start, you know, essentially working with farmers on contracts for larger scale growing.

We have extensive outreach and discussions ongoing with some of the big biofuel players. And our goal is really to be a feedstock supplier to those guys. And so. I would say that 

Kevin Folta: that's really great. What is the current availability of the products for meal 10? And is this something that a grower could be investing in right now to grow on their farm?

Olly Peoples: So, so the business model we have and, you know, until we, as we build the Microsoft has really kind of a, more of a contract. I'm essentially executing production agreements with drawers for our proprietary varieties on you know, that's, that's the most attractive way to do this as, as they could just all small, I mean, this could change over time, but certainly we have a lot of grata reach in that in obviously what we consider to be the launch regions for this crop.

I can't tell, I can't tell you [00:29:00] publicly what those are, but suddenly we are doing a load of trials all over north America and see quite a lot of potential. Not only, you know, as far up as Saskatchewan on Roberto, but all the way down to Georgia. 

Kevin Folta: That's pretty exciting because it would seem to be something that would work well where canola already works, obviously.

But there's plenty of spaces that have counter seasonal opportunities where we're, we're putting in things like, you know, Sudan, grass and buckwheat and sun hemp to serve as cover crops, that, to put something in that would produce a seed that would either be marketable or could potentially serve for animal feed.

It would be really exciting for lots of growers. 

Olly Peoples: It really is. And I, you know, I think you know, the farmer is a businessman and, and I, I know he's got, it's a child, it's a very challenging business. And so I think you know, it's, it's, it's the environmental benefits that the farm and the soil and the, and the water gets from cover cropping.

If that can be married up with economic benefit to the grower, [00:30:00] then I think you have what you really need for adoption, which is. 

Kevin Folta: So, do you have any projections as to when some of the other innovations that are coming, like, you know, the plastic producing or when that might be something that would be available to any farmer to put in as a cover 

Olly Peoples: crop?

Yeah. So, so the bioplastic is probably going to be a few years. I mean, the omega oil. So the only oil plot of treatment we haven't developed, it's actually pretty well-developed, we've essentially secured the rights to that for a cup of crop company in the UK. And what they've done is actually some institution in the UK.

And what they did is they actually engineered camelina to produce essentially fish oil, something that Luke's, but does not smell. You know, fish art, and that's very attractive in the nutrition, ICO feed space. Because obviously salmon farming is totally dependent on omega-3 EPA, EPA, and DHA.

Omega-3 fatty acids in the feed for the well, you know, for the health and the [00:31:00] viability of the salmon. And obviously it's very important in the human diet. So what we see is essentially our bio. You know, taking what we call the elite varieties initially non-regulated varieties. Those are essentially being commercialized now in our pipeline, we have herbicide and disease resistant varieties, which will be important to really scale the acreage.

And then behind that, we have these two product traits, the PHA bioplastic on the omega-3 oil plastic, those two traits will ultimately be integrated onto the elite, kind of will be. So we get the best economics as well as the higher volume. From, from that. So, you know, it's going to be awhile. The only reason we're not progressing, the only Guthrie platform aggressively in north America is because of some intellectual property issues, which we're working on to resolve.

The time's going to run out in those anyway, by 2025. But and as soon thereafter we will be planning to launch. 

Kevin Folta: Very good. So if you look at the pipeline, is there anything in the pipeline? That's really something that's an eye-opener for the consumer? 

Olly Peoples: I would say the things that are in the pipeline are really eye-opening for the [00:32:00] kids.

Consumer are obviously. On omega-3 oil, that's more or less a drop-in replacement for Southern hemisphere fish oil, which is the gold standard. It has good levels of EPA DHA. Plus other women will get three fatty acids as low omega sixes. I mean, it's really, and it's already gone through a number of clinical trials in the UK.

Well, it has been clearly demonstrated that you get the same benefits from the sustainable camelina omega-3 as you do from eating fish oil without the the fish Barb. And so, you know, that's a very exciting thing because clearly there was no way we can sustain the growing demand for omega-3 oils with high levels of EPA and DHA based on lotion.

And that means we can't meet the demands from both agriculture, as well as the growing nutraceutical market for health and wellness. And so, you know, let's a very exciting platform. And then the PHA bioplastics is a, you know, it's easy, it's a complete game changer, at least not. So maybe if you essentially imagine your [00:33:00] packaging, know your, you know, your straw or your spoon or whatever that was made from CO2 by a plot, perfectly natural, totally degraded.

And you know, that if it gets into the environment by mistake, it's not going to stay there for hundreds of years, it's going to go away you know, within the, within, you know, whether it's months or depending on the product farm, or even one to two years, but it's going to go away and it's going to be non floating.

So very exciting technology tremendous potential for creating a lot of jobs in rural areas. And I think tremendously important for really, you know or our natural environment so that we can enjoy it as much as possible with all this plastic, trash old and post. 

Kevin Folta: Nah, I, I love all of the different aspects of this, that, that just looked great all the way around, but one of the boxes that checks for me.

This gives farmers another option, a way to diversify and another income source that could be extremely valuable, that they would use rotationally with everything else. And that just has so many interesting benefits, especially if you [00:34:00] could improve its value as a cover crop. 

Olly Peoples: You know, I think you're hitting it right on the nail.

I mean, the bottom line is, you know, we see farmer's eyes, our partners in this business. You know, this is something where, you know, the amount of plastic we could produce using the cover crop is still going to be a very small percentage of the potential. So this is going to probably remain completely outside of that commodity problems, commodity cycle problems.

And it really allows them to have something that they can really rely on as a, you know, as a sustained. Good income source as the other crop values go up and down, depending on, you know, politics or trading or whatever it is. And so know this is, I think is a great phenomenally exciting proposition for farmers and we got excited to have them 

Kevin Folta: as partners.

Well, have you had any pushback? I mean, when you talk about engineering plants, even with gene editing there always seems to be some folks who get a little bit upset about that, but D seems to check all the right boxes. So are people generally. [00:35:00] Yeah, I would say 

Olly Peoples: it's interesting. I, you know, I had a strange meeting with a company called whole foods a few years ago and it really about the bioplastic we were making by fermentation the number of it.

And they were very concerned about the use of GMO car. And at the same time we had these GMO plants in the greenhouse that were producing the bio. You know, they were producing small amounts of the plastic. That is part of where early development program in this area. And he couldn't have been more excited about the potential of that, you know, so we should be very careful to, you know, I would say consider all, all concerns stated as legitimate concerns based on signs versus marketing.

But I would say financial concerns based on, on, on, on one, if you follow you. And so, you know, from my perspective as a, as a, someone with a very strong science background, you know, the whole GMO thing is nothing has been nothing but a scam on the [00:36:00] public. And it's being perpetuated by many of these countries.

Really is a source of market differentiation when there's really nothing in their product that makes it any, any different whatsoever. And so you see this non-GMO thing and you know, it doesn't make any sense. If you look at the challenges we face with feeding a global population, if you look at the sustainability and climate change and you know, things we have to deal with and I'm going to have to deal with, I just don't see a future where there's a, you know, a non-GMO world.

That's I think in fact, you got to see. 

Kevin Folta: And I'm with you a hundred percent. I've been a huge critic of the the labeling and the anti GMO movement for a long time. Because at the end of the day, the people in that movement, I'm more like them than I am like the corporate folks they hate. And I'm trying to get them to see that maybe this is something that's useful to you.

And so it's always been kind of a bittersweet. Thing for me. And unfortunately they've hit me really hard personally and professionally because they don't like [00:37:00] someone sharing the science of genetic engineering. 

Olly Peoples: No, they don't. And I think cubic, you become public enemy. Number one, to be slated by any scurrilous claim, they can concoct to that.

And unfortunately it's not an, it's not an, it's not a law. It's never. I would say an open, honest debate is essentially you're dealing with more or less political marketing. What do they take? It's kind of a no prisoners. Absolutely. Make sure there'll be either create facts to fit or agenda or ignore the real facts.

I mean, that's the problem with it and it's unfortunate, but I don't think it's going to go 100%. I just think that as the. As far as the challenges we face as a, as a, as a growing global population, you know, become front and center. You know, these kinds of, I would say motivations will become less of an issue.

And I think generally speaking, you've been growing GMO crops. No, for probably 30 years on a massive scale. It's probably, you know, probably everybody's consumed something. That's had something in [00:38:00] it and guess what? We're all kind of marching alone, just doing just fine. And then I think the final thing is, you know, for those of us in a somebody similar kind of thing with the vaccinations.

You know, that's a advanced gene technology that enabled those vaccines and, you know, for those folks who've taken the vaccines and I've been very pleased with the benefits of it. You know, it's a great use of genetic engineering to solve. Real-world problems in real time. And so it's a technology we need not only to medicine, but it's a technology we need in food production.

Kevin Folta: And that's why I'm grateful. You are on with me here today. It's it's being able to have these conversations to get out in front of the products that will come so that when they happen, people are excited about the opportunities rather than fearing the consequences that. Manufactured from a very small intransigent minority, you know, and that, so that's where we are going forward.

Then we should look forward to some of these innovations. So Dr. Ali peoples, you know, if people want to learn [00:39:00] more about yield 10 or follow you on social media, where should they look? 

Olly Peoples: Yeah, so I, I avoid social media for a number of reasons, but generally speaking, if you go to yield 10 bio a Y I E L D.

One zero BI o.com. You'll get all the information you need on the company and myself. 

Kevin Folta: That's fantastic. And you should purchase the domain where yield is spelled incorrectly because I haven't gotten it right in 55 years. 

Olly Peoples: Maybe that's something we should do. You should, 

Kevin Folta: because I'll end up on yield 10, which will be like the anti GMO version of your website.

And as always, thank you very much for listening to the podcast, be sure to check out collaborative products for your laboratory. They offer free trials on the main product that they offer, which is laboratory notebooks and inventory. And it does help you organize your laboratory. This is the talking biotech podcast, and we'll talk to you again next week.