167: Supercharging Seeds: Zayndu’s Revolutionary Cold Plasma Solution - Alberto Campanaro

Alberto Campanaro 00:00:00:

One thing I always find fascinating is that actually plants cannot move. Right. It seems really basic said like that we're like, yeah, of course we can all move well. But if you think about it, throughout the year this organisms have to resist heat waves, floods, different temperature in certain places in the planets excursion during the year of know 50 degrees Celsius, all of a sudden no water for months.

Harry Duran 00:00:33:

So. Alberto Campanaro, head of science at Zyndu, thank you so much for joining me on the vertical farming podcast.

Alberto Campanaro 00:00:39:

Oh, hi Eric, thanks for inviting me. It's great to be here finally.

Harry Duran 00:00:46:

So where are you calling from?

Alberto Campanaro 00:00:47:

You mean professionally or personally? As a human, where's home for you? The moment I'm Italian, but home is in the UK. Been in the UK for almost 11 years. I think almost 12. So kind of a 30% of my lifetime so far. Even more than that. So by now I will say home is between Italy, UK splitted families in Italy. Rest of the life is in the uk.

Harry Duran 00:01:20:

What part of Italy did you grow up in?

Alberto Campanaro 00:01:22:

Northeast. Like a small place. Really, really small. But the nice thing about it is that it's basically situated equal distance from the mountains and the sea and we're like 8 kilometer far from Venice. So for us, yeah, when I was young it was written as well now as pretty easy to just jump in a car on a train and go to walk around nice city, a nice city as Venice or same way just hop in a car and then go have a big walk, big hike and in the Alps which are equally incredible. And to be. Yeah, to be honest, I miss quite a lot the mountains. But yeah, it is what it is. We don't have high mountains in the uk.

Harry Duran 00:02:11:

That's true.

Alberto Campanaro 00:02:12:

Yeah. I think that I do remember. I think the Ben Nevis is the biggest one. But I don't want to say what it tops up. But it's not quite like the Alps. That's I'm quite sure about it.

Harry Duran 00:02:26:

Nothing is quite like the Alps for sure. What is your. Your favorite memory of growing up in Italy?

Alberto Campanaro 00:02:33:

Oh, well now it has to be family actually my favorite memory has to be going and walking the mountain. My grandparents really with my grandfathers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She want to go down that road. I have to say. I have to say that. Yeah. You know, I've got this memory of one of my grand that's taking me around. We were going playing of going little for mushroom to come. Oh actually. Yeah, yeah. And of course we're kind of playing because none of us were sort of allowed to Pick and choose which mushroom to take home and eat because could have been dangerous, of course.

Harry Duran 00:03:14:

Deadly.

Alberto Campanaro 00:03:15:

Yeah, kind of. Yeah. But yeah, that's one of the memories I've got when I was a really, really young kid. But yeah, I think. Yeah, that's a big one for me.

Harry Duran 00:03:28:

Yeah, of course. Is that also your earliest connection with like food? Because a lot of times when I think about earliest memories of food, it always comes back to family and especially growing up. I'm sure in a place like Italy, you think about maybe your grandparents kitchen and that influenced, you know, your adulthood.

Alberto Campanaro 00:03:48:

Yeah. How influenced your life and some sometimes your professional choices as well. Right. Yeah, that's, that's what it is of computer grandparents cooking also my parents to be honest because you know, they always cooked a lot as well. So let's don't forget about them as well. Don't forget about them. But yeah, this. But always they have memories of grandparents going out, picking some veggies out of the garden and just cook them on the spot. Yeah, yeah. And now that you make me think about it, this is actually quite interesting because now that I think about this, spend a lot of time with both my grandparents.

Harry Duran 00:04:27:

Yeah.

Alberto Campanaro 00:04:27:

Just growing veggies in the backyard, preparing. Yeah. Preparing the soil, planting, watering and all that. So yeah, this is an interesting thing. I never thought about it, I think, I don't know what. Well done. That's what makes a good host, I suppose because I never thought about this.

Harry Duran 00:04:46:

It's curious for me because I grew up in New York and so I grew up just outside New York City and then I lived in New York City. So I've always loved growing up the energy of big cities and I'm sure that's something you experience now in the UK as well. And you know, I kind of always thought that was going to be my life. And then I lived in LA as well and I got connected to the mountains there. So I can relate to the mountains. I miss the mountains because I live in Minnesota now, but I used to go on hikes a lot there and again but it was still a city type of environment. And now that I'm in Minnesota we have a bigger yard, just under an acre and we're planting a lot of things in our garden. You know, my partner's family grew up as hunters, so hunting deer, turkey, you know, and you don't really have that connection unless it's either in your family or it's something you were taught that's important. And so it's interesting now I have more of an appreciation for where food comes from and it's not from a supermarket shelf. Like it's as most people think.

Alberto Campanaro 00:05:44:

Yeah, I think that's part of one of the problems you have. Well, problems. Effects we have on our society is the disconnection of people from food. It always make me feel. But think about an amazing book that I read a while ago from Michael Pollan, I'm sure you know him, and he was discussing this thing and he said, oh, you know, in his book he was trying to grow to visit different kind of farms from the industrialized farms to going to the small regenerative farms. And then it was ending by hunting these deers and cooking it. And I never thought about that. For us, food is just a box of plastic on a shelf, actually. So we have to do it because, you know, we're complex society with a lot of people and it doesn't make any sense that everybody grown his own food. But yeah, it just created this connection there. Or you've been lucky enough to experience the connection of a lot of people. They will never do, unfortunately.

Harry Duran 00:06:48:

Yeah, yeah. And so what was the driver for you to go to the uk?

Alberto Campanaro 00:06:54:

Well, I think I need to answer this and it's going to take me a lot of time. Spend so much time you have, you know, let's drive. Basically what happened is that here in Italy, I was last year of university and for us to have a degree, you have to start to work in a lab, right? You have to work in a lab for one year, make your own experiments, make your own things by yourself, make your own thing by yourself, write up the pieces and then decide what to do afterwards. And actually I was not having before starting that I was not having any idea on what I wanted to do after or any clear picture, let's say, but starting to work in a lab. And luckily I always wanted to do something that I could see in Dutch. So my degree is in industrial biotechnology. And I start, you know, and a lot of my colleagues at the time, friends, were working with yeast fermenting stuff or bacteria producing medicine. And I decided to go for plants. As I said, I want to see them. I want to see what happens. I want to touch it. So I want to.

Harry Duran 00:08:11:

Where did that impulse come from that that this is the desire to work in this field?

Alberto Campanaro 00:08:16:

I don't know. I just felt like I needed to work with plants. I just felt like it's something I wanted really to do. I always been fascinated by plants, not only from food production perspective, but also from a research basic Research perspective. You know, one thing I always find fascinating is that actually plants cannot move, right. It seems really basic said like that we're like yeah, of course they cannot move. Well but if you think about it, throughout the year these organisms have to resist heat waves, floods, different temperature in certain places in the planet's excursion during the year of about 50 degrees Celsius, all of a sudden no water for months, right. And mammals or animals can move around, right? There's no water. Okay, let's go find it, right? Or for us human, oh it's really cold, let's go find a cave. But for plants, they're not allowed to. Yeah, they're not allowed to. And they have to resist whatever gets thrown at them. And I always find it extremely interesting. Something that, you know, sometimes we don't think about it is we just give it to a cow. They don't move. But, but I think it's what makes them so such a complex organism. Whatever they need to produce by themselves and they just do it from water, oxygen, CO2, meth. And I always find it absolutely fascinating. And I'm pretty sure that whoever you would ask the same question to, whoever comes from a plant science background, it would tell you pretty much the same thing. There's a fascination towards an organism that's to be self sufficient without moving an inch.

Harry Duran 00:10:16:

So especially when you get into the science of it, I'm sure you can see it at a level that's most people will never understand. Whether it's a molecular level, you know, what's happening at a photosynthesis level. You learn the basics when you're in school. Photosynthesis, yeah, I get it. Sunlight, chlorophyll. But when you start to look at what's happening like under the scenes and even if you look at trees for example, you start to see like the roots go down almost as high as the tree goes up and how they start to communicate. And you start learning about mushrooms. As another living organism that is actually communicates with others below the ground, it becomes really fascinating. I can see how that could become like a beautiful rabbit hole for you just to. The more you learn, the more you.

Alberto Campanaro 00:10:58:

Realize you don't know it is for so many people. And then people just get into, you know, the more your career progress, usually if you stay in academia, you just go down a single little detail and you just work on it and smash it and try to entangle molecular mechanisms that drive a single protein from. For all your career. Well that goes also not for, you know, for plant scientists. Or for other kind of scientists. But I think, I always think it's fascinating. It's really interesting how that can drive. How the curiosity for such a little detail can drive people for decades.

Harry Duran 00:11:40:

Sounds like it's driven you for decades. And I guess that's part of how you ended up not understanding what you were going to do after university. But something was pulling you towards the university.

Alberto Campanaro 00:11:48:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, if you want to go back to the question is that. Yeah, what I was doing my thesis work was I was lucky to have a couple of really good mentors and you know, I just started to be passionate about it and have been directed. I said, they told me what do you want to do after this? Do you want to do a PhD? You seem pretty, pretty competent and passionate. You want to do a PhD? I said yes, of course. Never thought about it until they asked me the question. And once they asked me, I said yes, I want to do it. I said do you want to be here in Italy or do you want to go somewhere else? I said please send me somewhere else. I just wanted to go somewhere else, see different reality, see how it goes. And then also you know, there's also that part that says sometimes in Italy doing being a side dis can be tough. And sometimes also, you know, for even simply for ego you get attracted to go to places where there is more money, more investments. Just say oh if I go down there I can afford to do that. And that experiment they was never been able to do. Yeah, simple as that. And I've been directed so I've been quite lucky to apply to a couple of them and one I won it and I found a fantastic supervisor in. And then I moved to UK. I was in Durham. I moved when I was 25 years old. Ish. Started my PhD. Yeah, well I was an old lad at that time in, in UK all my colleagues in Italy we finish university later, we are older compare all compared to the guys in UK still I was starting my PhD and my colleagues were like two years younger than me. Which okay, at that time feels a lot. Yeah, yeah but yeah, and also there I started to also be to get in contact with the commercial side of it because while I was in UK the PhD that I won was sponsored by KWS who is a huge multinational steel company and I started to work on Serial on Wheat specifically and that also was a. Was interesting part in my professional development because I've been able both to work in academia because I was doing my PhD at the University but to be exposed as well to big corporate, to the companies and what it is also to do applied science and it's. They require, they don't require different skill doing basic research or more applied but it depends on what you like more. There's definitely two different ways of approaching the problems and I enjoyed for a while to. To work on the edge of it. It was really fun. But yeah, I guess, you know, I can boil it down to a couple of. Interesting point. There is actually, as we said before in academia, you have your classroom, your team of guys that are absolutely obsessed by gas more liter protein for all their career. And that's amazing. That's amazing. But then I was lucky as well to have a fantastic company supervisor from kws. Ed. He's a great guy and he always told me, Alberto, always remember that you guys look at your protein and what we look at in here is five things. Yield number one, number two is yield. Number three sealed number four is yield. Number five is yield. We don't care about your proteins as long as your protein gives me more yield. Right, yeah.

Harry Duran 00:15:48:

Was that a bit of a wake up call for you?

Alberto Campanaro 00:15:51:

I think it was something that made me really interested into the approach. Right. Because of course you cannot do one without the other. Right. Because what you do in basic research now is what can enable you to have an increased yield 10 years down the line. Right. Because that's the reality. But the certain point, they started to be more intrigued by the fact that, you know, I don't want to waste 10 years. I want to get an impact now, to generate an impact now. And it's not me really getting my head into a small little protein for decades. I just want to see the bigger picture. I just want to work with plants out in the field. I want to do things different. But of course, what was your experience.

Harry Duran 00:16:47:

Alberto, with controlled environment agriculture at the time? Is it something that you had been aware of or is it something you started to become learn more about as you started to enter this field?

Alberto Campanaro 00:16:56:

I knew it was existing but before my current role I always worked with open field crops. I always worked on model species and or cereals out in the field, wheat, barley, that thing. So that was all my background because I work with. Yeah, with wheat for KWS then I've done a postdoc, I was sponsored by basf working on specific high tech funch sites, also on wheat. So before my job assigned you, I always worked on open field material. So okay. Thousand tons of seeds, few times a year and dozens and tons of flowers.

Harry Duran 00:17:40:

Coming out of It So what was the biggest shift for you as you started to apply all the knowledge you have in open field and all the experiences you had in open field and how you ran experiments and all the research you've done? What was the shift for you or what it had to change for you in terms of your thought process when you started to look at things from a controlled environment?

Alberto Campanaro 00:18:03:

It would be. It's an easy answer. Nothing. The way you do things is exactly the same. You just use different plans in a different setting. But what you actually do from a technical and scientific perspective, how you set up trials, how you set up tests, how you set up experiments, how you analyze them is absolutely the same. There is absolutely no difference. And I think that's what the only thing you have to relearn a bit is, yeah, you work with different kind of plants so you just have to learn a bit how they grow, how the plants are supposed to look like, what's their harvest cycles, what's their phenotype like. But besides that, the basic knowledge and the basic techniques that you acquire when you are young scientists and then you're referring throughout your career, they are the same, the principles are the same. That's a really interesting part about, about science in general is that, you know, I can take one of my data set and give it and it happened also give it to professor of Nottingham University to assess and these guys never worked in environmental agriculture. Maybe if you just only work on model species in basic science and they can simply look at it and say, yeah, it makes sense. So that's quite the beauty of science. We all can do it and we can cross check it with each other and we can all speak the same language even if we work. Even if you work in a field and I'm glass house and the other guy is a vertical farm, we're going to have different challenges, namely, I don't know, maybe when you work in broad daycare, the main challenges in setting up your trials is always the weather. You don't. It's always difficult to know when to go out and plant because maybe there's too much drought or last immunity start to rain so you have to delay your planting and that may impact the phenotype that you're looking at. But this while, you know, actually now I think about it in controlling planet it's quite, quite a bit easier because we can plant whenever we need.

Harry Duran 00:20:16:

So you. I love that you mentioned that there's not a difference between, you know, the type of research you do within cea. Can you Talk a little bit about how you got connected to Zyndoo and Ralph and the team and what was it about what they were working on that attracted you and interested you?

Alberto Campanaro 00:20:33:

Well, so at that time, I think to give you an idea of the time frame, we were going through one of the last lockdowns here in the uk. But at that time I just wanted. I really wanted to change our. Was still a postdoc in university. I wanted to change it because I just wanted to go out from academia and go into more applied research and, you know, I had some offers here and there from super big companies, super multinational. Oh, super multinational companies. And what I always thought is if I go there, just going to be doing my little experiment and then going home in the evening and just sort of being part. Being a small part of a big mechanism and nothing wrong with that. And then I thought, oh, well, I was wondering on the email or on the Internet looking for jobs, certain point I got in contact with a recruiter and he told me, hey, you know, I've got a position in a startup company. What do you think about a startup company? And then I was like, start a company. I never thought about it. Sounds exciting. Then I looked up Scientus websites and they thought, oh, this looks quite cool to say the least. Because at that time the website was not as flashy as this today. It was not as full of data as it is today. It was not applicable as it is today.

Harry Duran 00:22:09:

Very startup.

Alberto Campanaro 00:22:10:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And they were looking for a plant scientist and the technology was really cool. I was like, oh, you can do this and that and that and that. You can. You want to do priming to make the plant grow faster. You want to have more yield and you do it just with electricity. Okay, okay, okay. Uh, so I just started to know more. So I called back to the code. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, let me like, find me an interview date. I need to meet them. I just started to look it up on the intern, say, what's this thing?

Harry Duran 00:22:47:

Yeah.

Alberto Campanaro 00:22:48:

And turns out that, you know, designer technology is based on code plasma seed treatments. What it does is just you basically rearrange the molecules of the air with plasma and just you throw this chemistry to seeds and it does stuff. It makes plants grow faster, et cetera. We can talk about it later. I started to look it up into the Internet and it was something quite sound because there's. It was a process that has been studied for like, I don't know, a decade or something. I thought oh, I've never seen this before. You know when you see this thing that you look at a website and you think, oh, it's quite interesting, but do I believe it? It's quite interesting. Do I believe it? Then you look it up on the literature online. You know that I would go on the classic PubMed or on the classic sci hub when you don't get access and you're bro. When you're a broke postdoc in your living room, but don't tell anyone. And you find papers from like, I don't know, a decade ago. But I was even more recent in doing experiment on this plasma seed treatment. Well, I need to know more. So that's how I get in contacts. And I had an interview with Ralph CEO and independently with Felipe, who is the CTO and one of the founders. And I just thought, oh, this, these guys are sound, really. And I like the guys a lot and they liked me a lot. So they invited me over for a day to have a look at what they have and what they have on site. And I can tell you right now, it was really, really startup. You know, it was like four boys in a shed kind of thing. Which made you think, oh, okay. I always remember I was coming from a kind of a rich subgroup with flashy equipment and stuff.

Harry Duran 00:24:30:

Yeah.

Alberto Campanaro 00:24:30:

And I was there, I thought, you know, this is quite interesting, I can do this. It was also, you know, the technology was sound and at that time, and still I was looking for do something of impact. And technology as I do is incredibly impactful from environmental perspective. If you think about it, it's just that you can just push plants to grow faster and stronger just with electricity. Means that if you can put a couple of solar panels up your roof, you can do it completely without, with an impossibly low carbon impact, CO2 impact or whatever. And that was extremely powerful to attract me to it. And yeah, and that's how it all started. Ralph offered me a job and I accepted.

Harry Duran 00:25:26:

What's interesting about the story, Alberto, is people who are put into the same experience that you had. If they saw the four guys in the garage, you know, they do one of two things. They say, whoa, this is pure startup, very risky. Not for me. I need my security. I need to be working at a company that's more established. So I think it speaks to maybe something that's inherent in your nature, maybe this ability to try new things. Or what do you think it was in you that made you decide, you see that someone else sees that and turns away and Goes in the other direction. But you see it and you see potential. You can see where this is going. You've done your research, so you know the technology is sound. I'm curious like what your thought process is there?

Alberto Campanaro 00:26:11:

I think multiple things. I think first of all it was that a technology like that, with this potential, especially in terms of green credential, needs to be supported. First thing for me at the time was that, because, remember the year before I was working on pesticide and that I was there, I felt like, no, I, I need to support this right now. And then that's first part, second part is that the team gave me a great impression. They were really, really. I've been able to feel both the passion and technical knowledge. And they clearly seen that what was missing in there. And there was someone who can know, who knows how to work complex. You're having these two guys that often they don't know semiconductors and plasma stuff. Right. But they were telling me they're pretty good guys and I thought, oh, I can trust them. And then the other side, the bad part is that what does security mean when you can have fun? I love that, honestly, that part, because maybe it's my personality. Especially at that time I was like, oh, growing something from poor guys in a shed to something bigger. It's gonna be fun establishing a plant lab from nothing. Because it was really nothing. And when I went there, we built a new plant biology lab from scratch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From a room that was a. Our meeting room before. And we were the carpets from the floor with our nails, with our fingers over the weekend. That classical kind of thing, right?

Harry Duran 00:28:03:

Yeah, very startup, very exciting.

Alberto Campanaro 00:28:05:

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I remember my first four weekends, Assange were over the weekends, removing carpet on the floor, me, another couple of guys, and then Ralph, our CEO, was coming in with donuts at half a morning or something like that. You know, that kind of environment. So it was both fun and interesting and exciting, really. So I think that that's what attracts me to that.

Harry Duran 00:28:32:

That's a great story. So talk a little bit about the technology now that you've had the experience and the time of being there and applying your plant science background to the cold plasma technology. So for folks that maybe aren't, we'll obviously link back to our interview with Ralph. But you know, I'm sure there's been developments since then. How would you describe the technology and the benefits for control for growing in a controlled environment?

Alberto Campanaro 00:28:58:

Well, to do it quickly, as I can tell you in a second, the benefit and then we can talk about how it works. Basically, our technology is based on a piece of care for the lack of a better word in which you put seeds in. You press the start button, you waste some time and then these seeds get primed, AKA they germinate better. They germinate faster. Another important effect is that they germinate together. Yeah, you've diminished the variability in plant growth so the plants grow together. So at the end when you harvest, you have more product in specific in spec and less out of spec. And they just grow faster afterwards. Uh, so you can even harvest a couple of days before than you would normally because of this increased grow rate. Because you have a better start and a increased grow rate. So you harvest a couple of days earlier. And what we all know is that if you can control the environment, you can keep sowing and harvesting and you harvest cycle diminish. It means that your facility per year can produce more because you may be able to fit an extra cycle by paying the same amount of fixed cost. Well, you may need to pay for to get more seeds and all that. But you get what I'm trying to say. So that's one of the big benefit. The other benefit that we've seen is that another way of our user use the technologies that you don't harvest earlier, you harvest the same sort of harvest cycle, but you harvest more bias. That depends on your how on which plant you're working with. And if you're a vertical farm or greenhouse, depends on what your customer wants in terms of specification, et cetera, et cetera. So there is a sort of flexibility in it. So you got basically a plan that is supercharged. And how do you want to use this supercharge? It's at your discretion. And to quickly explain you how we work is we're based in basically what we do. The interesting part is that we can ignite plasma at room temperature and room and normal pressure and sea level pressure, let's say. And that what generates is a cocktail of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. A cocktail that we are able to control. Not gonna lie, it took us a while, but we've been able to start to control it. And with that what it does it increase the seed permeability. Right. That means that when you put the seeds out germination chamber, they absorb water that much faster. Therefore your plants grow a bit faster and they just sort of trigger to germinate and they're prepared for it. And that's how it works. Exactly. Also there must be also a lot of. There's a Physiological cascade of what happens when the seeds are exposed to neurons. There's a physiological effect. It's not super well studied, but still a lot that can be done in terms of basic research and what happens to these seeds and to these plants once they get exposed to plasma products. And that's something that would be really interesting to research more and do and look at it into detail. We need one of those academics who wants to do that from the plant perspective. That's pretty much an actual what we do.

Harry Duran 00:32:25:

So what's been the experience as you work with this technology and you start to have interactions with your clients and the people who are using it and are seeing success? You know, you. And I'm sure you start to get feedback from the field of what's working, what's not. So as the product has been developing, what type of feedback has been helpful for you as a plant scientist?

Alberto Campanaro 00:32:44:

Well, at this stage, well, in the previous years any kind of feedback was useful because, you know, technology in very infancy. Filica, what we're doing three, four years ago, it was tricky. It was maybe working one day. Yes. Two days now, which is normal for our technology in its infancy. Any sort of feedback was useful from the hey, I'm pressing the button, I'm hearing a strange noise to I'm planting the seeds and some of them are actually not germinating. You in fact killed all my seeds rather than made them terminate better, which.

Harry Duran 00:33:24:

I want to know.

Alberto Campanaro 00:33:25:

Oh, yes, yes, yes. And you know, in that regard, let's tell you we have some of our, let's say user a while ago were also were exactly playing this game. We were like, oh, let's see how far we can go before killing them. We need to kill the seeds.

Harry Duran 00:33:40:

Yeah.

Alberto Campanaro 00:33:41:

You know, I've been asked so many times, let's kill the seeds and then let's dial down from there. Which actually is really important parameter. It's one of the best way to start an optimization. If you don't know where to go. Just destroy everything and then walk backwards from that.

Harry Duran 00:33:56:

Yeah. Take it to 10 and then dial it down.

Alberto Campanaro 00:33:58:

Yeah, and then dial down. Yeah, why not? It's a way to do it. It's super interesting. But yeah. Now if you look at from there to what we've done now, now we're more like, you know, I might have a good idea what you should do. My user. Please make sure to do exactly what I'm telling you, otherwise you're going to kill the news. So, you know, a lot of time has passed and things have Changed a lot. Nowadays we have, we've got a loads of experience and we're able to help our customer in a way, much better way. Before we were trialing the technology. Now we are in the phase in which we optimize it to help our user to get the best that they can, you know. Yeah. Which is really different.

Harry Duran 00:34:42:

Do you see a big difference in terms of the different crops and the type, types of seeds and how the cold plasma reacts to them?

Alberto Campanaro 00:34:50:

Yes, extremely. So one part of it is how this is in fact react. And I can tell you that we have arrived to certain level of detail. For example, take spinach for example, that we study quite a lot because there's a lot of request in the market for us for spinach to improve it. And we can see this variation response at the level of varieties. Right. So we are at the moment, in terms of plasma protocol, for example, we have three of them and these three, depending on which variety you're growing, you need to go 1, 2 or 3. And you know, the level of detail is quite extreme. Two years ago, three years ago we were talking about, oh, or the spinach gonna be treated the same or the lettuce gonna be treated the same. Now, not anymore, we just go down that level. So yeah, there's a variety response, not a species response. Well, species response of course there, but that's the level of detail and of course we see.

Harry Duran 00:35:50:

So it sounds like you have a. It's almost like a recipe, a cold plasma recipe for each species and variety.

Alberto Campanaro 00:35:56:

Yeah, in fact, yes. So we've got a certain number of variable that we can tweak to generate the recipes for speed for our customer. Quite a few, I would say quite a few. And it's really, really important to have this specific one because one, if you don't have the right one, you just don't know, don't have any benefit or you may also go down the road of having problems. And two, it depends on how long you want to work on optimization and you can always squeeze more performance depending on what you want. But yeah, we have a lot of recipes. They are all adapted to different species and varieties. And it's interesting because there are some species that require a super intense plasma, while other other with a medium plasma, you just kill them. So yeah, yeah, it's something that we need to help our user. We support our users in doing them, actually. We do them for them really, because you cannot start from scratch, otherwise you'll never make it. You're going to need five years rather than One month, which is not interesting. Right.

Harry Duran 00:37:14:

Yeah. Alberto, I'm curious. Is there a specific size farm that or operation where it would make sense to engage with design due technology? Is there a place or a time where maybe it's too soon for them because maybe they're not big enough or what have you seen from your experience like an ideal client and an ideal time to engage with Zyndu.

Alberto Campanaro 00:37:36:

So I don't have the number on my head at the moment with that. There definitely is. There's not a limit, an upper limit because you know. But there's definitely a lower limit. You're gonna. First you're gonna need to have a farm. So with a good starting point. But this varies and I'm afraid I cannot give you that number at the moment. I'm not prepared with it.

Harry Duran 00:38:01:

Yeah, it's just something to think about. That's okay. I think it's. It's important and, and we'll have all the links available. I'm curious what you know, for people that are not as aware as you know what a plant scientist does. What's a typical day for you look like?

Alberto Campanaro 00:38:16:

Well, typical day of when I was a plant scientist or when. Now that I have to.

Harry Duran 00:38:23:

I would say now.

Alberto Campanaro 00:38:24:

He would say now. Well, okay. I'll try to gain time while I think about it by saying as I'm Italian. Idea how we start with a good coffee, right?

Harry Duran 00:38:35:

Of course, of course.

Alberto Campanaro 00:38:37:

Without it doesn't work.

Harry Duran 00:38:38:

But an espresso?

Alberto Campanaro 00:38:40:

Yeah. Double. Eventually double. Preferably eventually double. But you know the funny thing now is that the first thing they're doing my day, even if I'm. It's a while then now I don't work anymore in the lab because I've got my team dealing with it. And the interesting thing is that the first thing that I do when I go in the office after drinking coffee actually. So the second thing is just call my guys and say, hey, let's do a lab work. Let's go in the lab and look up plans. Because in the end it's an old thing that one of my mentors when I was 24 told me. First thing you do when you come to the office, you look at your plans and then you open your email and then I. And then I start. I've done it so since then and I keep doing it and you know, it's kind of interesting when you start to do it on the other side when you don't have to explain your boss things. I can ask them questions. But yeah, the habits is there still going the lab, look at the plants, show me the last experiment, give me some green, which is also give me a bit of energy because the rest of my day ends up in spreadsheet meetings and PowerPoint and reports and grant application and reports to the board and talk with customer, talk with user and problem solving. Well, I have to say, still my favorite part of the day is go in the lab and look at the plants.

Harry Duran 00:40:06:

Yeah. Engaging with the living organisms.

Alberto Campanaro 00:40:11: T

hat's the core of our business, you know, agriculture business. We do not. If we don't do good things to the plants, we're useless. Right, yeah. That's the most important part of it is not our machine or it's what we do. It's how what we do impact the plants. The rest is accessory.

Harry Duran 00:40:34:

Yeah, for sure.

Alberto Campanaro 00:40:36:

Or at least that's my opinion.

Harry Duran 00:40:38:

Yeah, yeah. Because we're growing a garden here, like I mentioned, in my house, in my yard, and it's a pretty decent sized garden. And my partner, she's more connected, you know, to the trees and the animals, the plants. She feeds the squirrels. But she makes it a point to, you know, get her coffee and walk around the yard and see what came up today, you know, what, how the plants are doing. And I think for me it's a shift from the city guy mentality of like. For me, it's like get on the train, get on the bus, get on the subway, go to work, get in the office, you know, so I have to slow down. And she's helping to remind me that the most important thing is to kind of look at what's changed. Because in 24 hours, you know, it's so funny how things, plants, you know, they just change and different things come up. And if you start to have those eyes, that awareness of how plants grow and, you know, the. From seedlings and how, you know, quickly things can change in 24 hours. It gives you a new perspective.

Alberto Campanaro 00:41:35:

Oh, yeah, yeah. They change even in 12 hours. Sometimes, you know, we've. Sometimes I contended this much. Sometimes we have. You can have seeds that germinates so fast that we have to count, withdraw. A germination counts every 12 hours. Every 12 hours we have a look into it because very big. Go that fast. It is what it is, which is really fantastic and fascinating. But sometimes when you're a younger plant scientist can be a pain because it means that you have to go to work over a weekend.

Harry Duran 00:42:08:

Well, at least you're not pulling up carpet anymore on the weekends, you're doing something a little bit more Interesting.

Alberto Campanaro 00:42:13:

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. But yeah, you know, that's it. I think the plants are the core and lucky some first in the industry starting to be really. I'm glad that I was sector started to be really aware of that and really raising that and really keeping an eye on the plant themselves because that's what we do. Right. There's no way to get it to go around it.

Harry Duran 00:42:40:

No. What's been the shift for you to move from. From plant scientist to managing now a team of scientists. How has that influenced or how have you grown or had to evolve as a leader?

Alberto Campanaro 00:42:54:

So the shift happens because I guess I said again, it depends on personality. Some personality. At certain point they want more, they won't change. Some people love to stay in the bench. And at a certain point I just had enough and I want to have a bigger picture. And tennis ball is kind of a natural shift rather than a decision. When you start to need more people to work with you and you ask your boss, I need more stuff if you want us to do everything. So what happens that you start to hire more people and then naturally you have to say, oh, sorry, I have a meeting or sorry, I have to compile the budget. So you start to stay out to stay out more and a different set of challenges arise. It's completely different. It's more like having a picture from. Having a view from far aside. And in a sense it's not anymore keeping an eye on your one or two experiments, but keeping an eye on 10 experiments of the whole team and understanding what can be more interesting for the success of the company for three, four months down the line is a complete shift in mentality. And also it's more like, oh, you guys are doing this now. In six months I need to achieve that other objective that has been given me from the board or whatever. So suddenly you have to rethink everything and rewire all the program of the lab, of everyone to achieve that. And that's a great challenge because it's not anymore you and your little experiments, but it's more like a wider perspective on the success of everyone else and just make sure that you can do your part for it.

Harry Duran 00:44:43:

What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently?

Alberto Campanaro 00:44:48:

A tough question I have to ask myself professionally or in my human life, or both.

Harry Duran 00:44:55:

I'll take both.

Alberto Campanaro 00:44:56:

You take both. Okay, okay. Okay. That's even harder. You know that this is you completely pulling the carpet off my feet. I don't know what to say now. I don't know what to say.

Harry Duran 00:45:10:

How about in professionally? Like what? When you think about where you're going and all the projects that you have and the objectives you're trying to accomplish with Zydu, you know, do you think about how you get there? And if you have.

Alberto Campanaro 00:45:22:

You know what? I always think about that, which is always in the back of my mind. That is one of the things that I guess it may. It makes a difference when you start to go into more management role, is what should I do to make sure that the company has success? Because being successful means that not only I can pay my bills, but also my guys. And that for me is getting really important because, you know, sometimes a startup life is a roller coaster. We all know that. But he went through it and wait a minute. I need to make sure that my boys pay their rent or they pay mortgage.

Harry Duran 00:46:08:

Yeah.

Alberto Campanaro 00:46:09:

And that is one of the tough questions. Am I doing good enough? Am I doing good enough? And am I doing good enough for me? And am I still really true to myself in this new role that I'm doing lately? It's difficult. Those are my biggest questions at the moment.

Harry Duran 00:46:30:

Those are good ones. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show and giving us a deeper dive into the world of what happens with Plant Science, because it's a lot. We cover it in different areas a lot of times from the founder's perspective. So I really appreciate this deeper dive. And I think there's people that the audience that are going to be interested and obviously there's always people that are coming into the industry that are new to Plant science and they're really excited. I'm sure you remember what the energy is like when you're first getting started with your career. So I think this epic conversation, I think, was a nice, helpful insight to how you got to where you are and what keeps you motivated and what keeps you moving forward. So I want to thank you for sharing your backstory and your history with Zyndo, because I think it was really interesting.

Alberto Campanaro 00:47:16:

Thanks, Harry. Yeah, actually, it's been really fun. Stay here. And chatting made me think about so many things that I have forgotten in time. So thank you very much for this. It was really good.

Harry Duran 00:47:27:

Yeah, thanks again. And we'll make sure that we'll have links to your contact information and Zaindu in the show notes, and if people want to get in touch with you, we'll make sure we have that information available. But I appreciate you sharing the story.

Alberto Campanaro 00:47:40:

Thank you.