May 16, 2019

Collaboration unites plant nutrition efforts of Compass Minerals, Marrone Bio

Compass Minerals Plant Nutrition, a division of Compass Minerals (NYSE:CMP), a leading developer and manufacturer of specialty plant nutrition solutions, and Marrone Bio Innovations Inc. (NASDAQ:MBII), a leading developer of bio-based products for pest management and plant health, today announced that the two companies have formed a collaboration to develop new specialty plant nutrient products enhanced with microorganisms. The new products will be developed with patented technologies aimed at helping crops take up nutrients more efficiently, to increase crop health and reduce crop stress.

From Marrone Bio’s collection of 18,000 microorganisms, Compass Minerals Plant Nutrition will leverage its specialty in plant nutrition with a subset of Marrone’s novel microbes, to create innovative products to enhance plant health and growth. The result expected is new value-added products aimed at providing growers with improved plant vigor, higher yields and a better return on investment.

Microorganisms are known to control pests and plant diseases, increase plant health, growth, crop yields and reduce drought, salt and other stresses. One way that microorganisms increase plant growth is by making nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and minerals or micronutrients more available to the plant. The availability of these nutrients increases the efficiency of the plant’s nutrient uptake. This not only helps farmers’ bottom line but can also be more environmentally friendly by reducing the quantity of excess nutrients that are not efficiently taken up by the plant.

“Compass Minerals Plant Nutrition is excited to have access to the rich collection of Marrone Bio’s microorganisms that have shown the ability to improve plant health and growth,” said Ryan Bartlett, vice president of innovation and product development at Compass Minerals. “This collaboration is an important one as we continue to expand our season-long plant nutrition portfolio and build on our history of innovation and leadership in the category with this unique line of products.”

“We have been seeking ways to innovatively leverage our microorganism collection and biologicals development expertise into new and adjacent markets beyond crop protection such as the $155 billion crop nutrition market.” said Pam Marrone, CEO of Marrone Bio. “Leveraging our companies’ combined technologies’ and core competencies; we look forward to working with Compass Minerals Plant Nutrition as a partner in the development of exciting new products that don’t exist in the market today.”