Powerpollen

About Powerpollen

PowerPollen, operating under its legal name Accelerated Ag Technologies LLC, offers a transformative approach to agricultural pollination, addressing long-standing inefficiencies in crop reproduction. The company was founded in 2015 by Dr. Todd Krone and Jason Cope, who began experimenting in Krone's garage. Both founders leveraged decades of experience at major agribusinesses like Corteva Agriscience and Bayer to tackle the challenge. Krone’s background is in plant breeding and genetics, while Cope’s expertise lies in applied engineering and technology integration.

The core of PowerPollen's business is its patented technology for collecting, preserving, and applying pollen on-demand. This process circumvents the reliance on natural, wind-based pollination, which is often inefficient due to weather and mismatched reproductive timing between plants. The technology extends the viability of corn pollen from about an hour to over eight months, and potentially up to four years using cryogenics. By decoupling pollination from environmental variables, the company provides greater control over crop reproduction, which can increase corn seed production yields by more than 20%. Its clients are primarily large-scale seed producers and agricultural companies, with whom it has established commercial agreements and research collaborations, including with BASF and Corteva Agriscience.

PowerPollen's service involves several stages. Specially designed machinery collects large volumes of pollen from male plants in the field. This pollen is then taken to a lab where it is conditioned with a proprietary additive to preserve its viability. Finally, custom applicators, including recently developed autonomous robots, dispense the preserved pollen onto female plants at the optimal time for fertilization. This precision application not only boosts yield but also improves seed purity and enables the development of new hybrid combinations that were previously not feasible. The company operates on a service-based model, applying its technology across thousands of commercial acres. Headquartered in Iowa, PowerPollen runs research operations in Texas and Puerto Rico to facilitate year-round testing and development.