Biolumic’s UV light technology earned them a runner-up spot in the Seed World Global Innovation Showdown.
When Jason Wargent started BioLumic, he didn’t know exactly how the company would change the world. He just knew it could.
“I’ve always believed we could make an impact,” says Wargent, BioLumic’s founder and chief science officer. “But the breakthroughs we’re making now — those weren’t even imaginable when we started.”
BioLumic, a 2025 runner-up in the Seed World Global Innovation Showdown, has created a groundbreaking seed trait platform powered by light. Its technology, which activates traits using short, targeted bursts of UV and visible light, is not only transforming how seeds grow — it’s transforming how seed companies think about innovation.
“We’re controlling gene expression with light,” Wargent explains. “We’re activating entire pathways that already exist in the plant, and we’re doing it instantly. There’s no gene editing, no chemicals, and no regulatory delay.”
This approach, known as xTrait™ (short for Genetic Expression Trait) technology, taps into photomorphogenesis — plants’ natural response to light that drives development throughout the lifecycle. With Light Signal Recipes™, BioLumic uses brief, precise combinations of UV light as a natural programming language for plants that can boost root mass, increase yield, improve plant immunity and even reduce methane emissions in livestock feed crops. These treatments don’t alter DNA. Instead, they awaken what’s already there.
“We’re discovering just how much untapped potential exists in every plant,” Wargent says. “We believe nearly every crop has headroom for performance — and we’ve only just begun to explore what’s possible.”
Lighting the Way in Seed Corn
While the science may sound futuristic, BioLumic’s commercial path is very real — and already underway. In 2024, the company launched its first large-scale commercial collaboration with Gro Alliance and its seed licensing arm, Breeder Direct. There, BioLumic is treating inbred corn lines using proprietary light recipes before they enter seed production.
“This year is the first time light-treated seeds will be available to growers for planting,” Wargent says. “And the benefits are compounding. Not only do seed companies see higher yields in their inbred production fields, but farmers who plant the resulting hybrids are seeing trait gains as well.”
Some of those results have been staggering. BioLumic usually aims for double-digit yield gains, but in 2024 field trials, they saw yield increases of up to 77% in second-generation hybrid corn, driven by light-treated inbreds.
“We think we’re starting to trigger hybrid vigor in ways no one else can,” Wargent says. “If that’s true, we’re looking at a whole new way of driving performance.”
Just as impressive: these outcomes are achieved with minimal seed volume, thanks to application at the parent seed stage. That efficiency, paired with rapid diagnostic testing and no regulatory burden, gives BioLumic a speed advantage in an industry known for long development cycles. Wargent says trait packages can be rolled out 90% faster and at a fraction of the cost compared to GM or traditional breeding methods.
More Than Corn
The corn pipeline is just the beginning. BioLumic is actively developing traits for soybean, rice and pasture grasses. Laboratory and field trials have shown:
- More than 20% avg. yield gain in multiple untreated hybrid lines (trait pass-through from activated parent lines) and +8.2% yield increase in more than a dozen activated inbreds
- 15% increase in rice emergence and vigor, enabling Direct Dry-Seeded Rice (DDSR) systems which eliminate the need for flooded fields, thus reducing methane emissions
- 50% fewer pest and disease symptoms in soybeans and leafy greens
- A 2-3% lipid gain in forage grass — validated in trials — that reduces enteric methane emissions by 12% from standard practice-fed livestock.
- 30% greater root mass in corn, improving drought resilience and carbon sequestration
What’s more, BioLumic’s seed treatments don’t require any changes in grower practices. Seeds go through the same channels — just biologically upgraded from the start.
“This is a trait platform, not a product,” Wargent emphasizes. “It can plug into virtually any germplasm, and the traits can be inherited — even without retreatment.”
A Decade of Discovery
Founded in 2013, BioLumic spent its early years focused on horticultural crops. The pivot to seed treatment came only after the team realized light’s potential to activate traits at the earliest stages of plant life, where the xTraits technology creates the highest leverage point for programming traits at scale—delivering real-world impact.
“We used to treat plants, not seeds,” Wargent says. “The big leap was realizing we could go back to the very beginning, to the seed itself, and trigger these responses. That changed everything.”
What followed was a flurry of innovation: the development of proprietary gene expression diagnostics, a breakthrough in seed screening speed and the discovery that cross-generational trait inheritance was possible.
“Now we can treat parent seed and deliver benefits not just in that seed, but in the next generation,” Wargent says. “That’s the kind of thing that could fundamentally reshape seed production.”
Innovation for Impact
BioLumic’s growth reflects the seed industry’s growing appetite for sustainable, scalable, high-impact trait innovation. With new partnerships forming and its first U.S. treatment center on pace for installation, BioLumic is preparing to scale up fast.
“We’re working with companies like Gro Alliance and Beck’s Hybrids,” Wargent says. “And we’re just getting started. There’s strong interest across the board — from seed companies to dairies to food companies focused on environmental sustainability.”
For Wargent, the rapid momentum is both thrilling and hard-earned. “This is an 11-year-old company,” he says. “Most of our breakthroughs have come in the last three.” BioLumic has since expanded into the U.S. with a field office in Illinois and lab in Massachusetts to scale strategic collaborations in India, New Zealand, and soon South America.
So what’s his advice to others developing ag tech solutions that might be ahead of their time?
“Don’t stop. Just keep going,” he says. “You won’t always know where the breakthrough is going to come from. But if you believe in your science, and you have the data to back it up, you’ll get there.”
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