The company obtains natural rubber from sunflowers

Recently, Edison Agrosciences in St. Louis, Missouri, USA announced that it has completed US$600,000 in sunflower seed financing. The investment benefits from support from existing and new investors, including BioGenerator, Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC), Crisp Corporation and others.

Edison currently focuses on producing natural rubber from sunflowers. Since the United States lacks domestic sources of natural rubber, global supply comes from natural rubber tree species grown primarily in South and East Asia.

Edison said it has found a promising solution by developing and commercializing sunflower natural rubber, a crop grown on about 1 million acres in the United States. U.S. sunflower fields are expected to produce more than 25,000 tons of natural rubber each year, but the current concentration of rubber in sunflowers is too low to be economically extracted.

The company's groundbreaking research focuses on increasing the concentration of rubber in each plant, thereby increasing yields per acre through advanced computational breeding and agronomic techniques.

The seed capital from this financing will be used to advance research and development, including completing the third year of field trials, increasing production capabilities for customer product evaluations, and further developing the supply chain infrastructure required to bring this innovative solution to market.

Additionally, the company welcomes Tom Marsh to its Board of Directors. Tom Marsh has more than 40 years of experience in the latex and rubber industry and has a deep involvement in the rubber supply chain. He will bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the company.