By Allan Maurer

BALTIMORE, MD – Plant Sensory Systems, a company developing technologies to improve agricultural performance, has raised $100,000 of equity, according to a regulatory filing.

The company disclosed the raise in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing marks the raise as part of an offering in an indefinite amount that may be ongoing.

The company is developing technologies to improve agricultural performance and alleviate negative environmental impact by optimizing the ability of plants to acquire and utilize nutrients to increase biomass, yield, and quality.

Housed in the The University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s business Incubator and Accelerator since January 2008, the company received two grants from the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research program.

A nine-month grant awarded in August 2008
helped the company test new genetic modifications on its laboratory plants to divert more carbon into seed oil.

An earlier 2008 NSF SBIR grant helped the company test new genetic modifications on its laboratory plants. The research is a crucial first step in creating plants that require less nitrogen and are more tolerant to drought.

The company currently has two technologies: the NUE/Stress Tolerance technology increases nitrogen use efficiency and stress tolerance in plants, increasing crop yield.

The second is the Metabolic Regulator technology which can target entire metabolic pathways to improve specific agricultural traits. It is a platform technology that has the power to control entire metabolic pathways. It is a single dominant gene making it readily transferable into any crop.

Online: www.plantsensorysystems.com

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