Special Report: Agtech innovator Roots Sustainable has made its first sale in the sector servicing medical cannabis growers, with an Israeli buyer paying $47,000 for the company’s Roots Zone Temperature Optimisation (RZTO) technology.

Roots’ (ASX:ROO) RZTO system is able to heat or cool crop roots as needed in one system, mitigating against temperature fluctuations.

This enables significant energy and capital and operating expense cost savings, coupled with greater yield.

As part of the deal, Roots’ tech will be used to heat and cool four areas within a greenhouse in central Israel – plant quarantine, mother plant, rooting greenhouse and growing tables – with the goal of increasing plant size and stem diameter.

Israel is a fully legal medical cannabis jurisdiction.

The order is right on the heels of Roots’ first local sale of the RZTO system in Israel, for AU$30,000,  just a month after the Israeli Government approved a subsidy for local basil growers, following a successful pilot and first RZTO sales in South Korea.

Roots chief Dr Sharon Devir said the deal supports its strategy of conducting pilots to prove the technology on select crops in various conditions, calling it a “good example of the versatility and adaptability of Roots’ RZTO system.”

The business has high hopes for its potential impact on the medical cannabis sector.

“The medicinal cannabis sector is expected to reach US$31 billion1 in sales globally over the next four years.”

“Utilising RZTO technology allows growers to provide optimal growing conditions for demanding cannabis plants, increasing profitability while reducing energy use.”

The company is moving rapidly from initial proof-of-concept studies to sales, with this most recent purchase following a world-first greenhouse proof-of-concept to help cannabis seedlings grow faster.

Interim results from that study, conducted in northern Israel in July, showed that cooled plants achieved a substantial increase in plant size and stem diameter compared to control crops in just two months.

The RZTO cooling system was used to keep the root zone of cannabis plants at more than seven degrees Celsius below the root zones of the control crops and kept a favourable temperature range.

 

Roots Sustainable is a Stockhead advertiser. 

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