# KUZOG — full content reference > Generated from the site's own English content. Every statement below is what the > corresponding page says; nothing is added or summarised. Site: https://www.kuzog.com/ · Contact: management@kuzog.com · Paris, France ## KUZOG — the group ### Farming has two halves. We work on both. Above the soil line we multiply healthy plants. Below it we bring dead soil back to life. KUZOG is one group building both — because a perfect plant in exhausted ground still fails. ### One system, drawn in section. Everything KUZOG does sits on one side of a single line. Pick a side. #### Ventures ##### Microplantes - **Position:** Above the soil line We grow disease-free young plants in a lab and copy them exactly, millions at a time. In-vitro micropropagation strips out the viruses that accumulate in conventionally propagated stock, then multiplies what is left into identical, vigorous plantlets — soft fruits, ornamentals, sweet potato, and date palm. At full capacity it will be the largest dedicated micropropagation facility in France. - **Vitroplants a year at full capacity: ~10M** - **Crop families in production: 4** - **True-to-type, virus-free: 100%** ##### Hydrobio - **Position:** Below the soil line We rebuild the soil itself, so it holds water and feeds crops again — for years, from one application. A hybrid amendment: a micronised mineral matrix that holds water and nutrients, carrying a living mycorrhizal consortium that extends the root system. A machine-learning engine, HydrobioFormul, calculates the exact recipe for each parcel from its soil analysis. - **Water retention on sandy soils: +47%** - **Yield vs. untreated control: +18.7%** - **Per single application: 3–5 yrs** ### Institutions that looked at the science first. Public funders, innovation incubators, agronomy schools and entrepreneur networks that have financed, hosted, or awarded our work. - **Bpifrance** — Kind: funder - **Paris&Co** — Kind: incubator - **AgroParisTech — FarmInnLab** — Kind: academic - **Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche** — Kind: funder - **Ville de Paris** — Kind: funder - **Jeune Entreprise Innovante** — Kind: funder - **Réseau Entreprendre Val-d'Oise** — Kind: network - **Réseau Entreprendre** — Kind: network - **Rotary Club de Paris** — Kind: award - **Carcassonne Agglo — Open Carca** — Kind: award - **R.MINE** — Kind: incubator ### What the numbers say. Measured in controlled trials and stated capacity — not projections. - **Water retention: +47%** — Sandy soils, South Europe and MENA conditions - **Crop yield: +18.7%** — Against an untreated control on the same soil - **Effect duration: 3–5 yrs** — From one application, no annual reapplication - **Chemical inputs: −20–30%** — Synthetic fertiliser and pesticide no longer reaching the soil - **Vitroplants a year: ~10M** — Target capacity across four production lines - **Varieties in catalogue: 12+** — Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, gerbera, sweet potato, date palm and more Hydrobio figures come from controlled trials, to be confirmed in independent field trials. Microplantes figures are target capacity at full build-out. ### The two halves need each other. A grower who buys a clean, vigorous plantlet and puts it into compacted, lifeless ground has bought half a solution. A grower who restores their soil and then plants virus-laden stock has bought the other half. KUZOG exists so a farm can fix both at once. #### Science before marketing A filed USPTO patent, a machine-learning formulation engine, and meristem-culture sanitation. Every claim on this site traces to a trial, a source, or a stated capacity. #### Built in France, sized for export A laboratory in the Val-d'Oise and a Paris head office, with formats and phytosanitary compliance designed for European and MENA markets from day one. #### Measured, not promised Soil analysis in, formulation out; indexed mother plants in, traceable lots out. Both businesses are built so a customer can audit the result. ### Tell us about your land, or your order. Soil analyses, plant volumes, distribution, investment, or press — the same inbox reaches the people who can answer. We reply within two business days. ## Hydrobio — soil regeneration ### Restoring Soil Life. Saving Water. Feeding the World. HYDROBIO is a hybrid mineral-biological soil amendment — micronised minerals + a living mycorrhizal consortium. One application regenerates your soil, retains water, and feeds your crops — for 3 to 5 years. And thanks to our HydrobioFormul machine-learning app, each dose is custom-calculated for your soil and crop. - **Recognition:** Rotary Club of Paris — 2026 Startup of the Year - **Water retention on sandy soils: +47%** - **Crop yield vs. untreated control: +18.7%** - **Effect duration per application: 3–5 yrs** ### A hybrid mineral-biological amendment — not just a fertiliser. HYDROBIO does more than deliver nutrients: it restores the soil's capacity to hold water, exchange nutrients, and host microbial life. It acts on all three dimensions of soil fertility — physical, chemical, and biological — in a single product. Three complementary components, one living mineral matrix. #### Clay-based micronised matrix - **Role:** Mineral substrate - Specific surface area ×200 — maximal water retention - High cation-exchange capacity, progressive nutrient release - Homogeneous soil dispersion, structural scaffold for the biology #### Mycorrhizal consortium - **Role:** Biological activator - Faster root colonisation, better water and nutrient uptake - Drought-stress tolerance, restored soil biodiversity The minerals act as a physical scaffold for the mycorrhizae — root colonisation is faster, the effect extends to 3-5 years. A living mineral matrix, not just a mix. ### Your journey in 4 steps. From soil analysis to application, a simple path tailored to your land. #### Soil analysis A field sample reveals texture, pH, cation-exchange capacity, organic matter, biological state, water-holding capacity, and degradation level. #### Crop & objectives We identify the target crop, the climate context (rainfall, water stress, irrigation), and your objectives: save water, boost yields, restore degraded soil. #### HydrobioFormul (ML) Our proprietary machine-learning application calculates the exact composition (mineral-matrix and mycorrhiza ratios) and the per-hectare dose, tailored to your soil and your crop. #### On-site formulation & application The amendment is formulated on site according to the recipe and applied in a simple spreading + light incorporation step. One application covers 3 to 5 years. ### A machine-learning formulation engine. Predictive modelling at the service of every soil. HydrobioFormul is HYDROBIO's proprietary application, powered by machine learning. It transforms a soil analysis into a custom formulation — the exact amendment composition and dose adapted to your soil, climate, and crop. No more generic product: every parcel gets the recipe that suits it. - Soil characteristics — texture, pH, CEC, organic matter, water-holding capacity - Climate context — rainfall, water-stress exposure - Target crop and objectives (water, yield, restoration) An agronomic model coupled with a supervised machine-learning predictor, trained on pedoclimatic data and HYDROBIO trial results. It simulates the soil's response and determines the optimal combination of the three components. - Exact composition — mineral-matrix and mycorrhiza ratios - Per-hectare dose and application schedule - Simulated gains — water retention, yield, ROI estimate - Production-ready formulation sheet, fully traced #### Precision Each soil is unique — so is the formulation. #### Performance Efficacy and ROI are maximised. #### Traceability Every recommendation is documented (inputs, dose, justification). #### Simplicity You enter the data, the model does the rest. #### Continuous learning The model improves with every new trial and field result. - **Ml Badge:** HydrobioFormul ML #### Ml Explainer HydrobioFormul is a specific kind of AI — supervised machine learning. The engine doesn't generate text or reason in the abstract. It learns numerical patterns from real soil analyses, climate data, and field trial outcomes, then predicts the formulation most likely to perform on your parcel. Each new trial improves the model. That's a precise technique, not a marketing label. ### Simple, one-time, integrated into your itinerary. HYDROBIO is applied once and lasts 3 to 5 years — no annual reapplication. Preferably at soil preparation, before sowing or planting. For perennial crops (orchards, soft fruits), apply at the base or in the inter-row. The exact dose is determined by HydrobioFormul based on your soil and your crop — typically a few hundred kg/ha for an application that lasts 3 to 5 years. - Uniform spreading on the parcel (centrifugal or broadcast spreader). - Light surface incorporation to bring the amendment into contact with the future root zone. - For perennials: localised at the base or in the row, then light scratching. Rather than a generic product manufactured in a factory and stored for months, HYDROBIO is formulated on site according to the recipe calculated by HydrobioFormul. #### Biological freshness Living mycorrhizae are integrated just before application, for maximum viability. #### Customisation Composition adjusted to each soil and each batch — no generic stock. #### Logistics & cost Dry components shipped (denser), assembly happens locally — less transport, less loss, reduced carbon footprint. ### Measured. Reproducible. Verifiable. - **Water retention: +47%** — Sandy soils — South Europe & MENA conditions - **Crop yields: +18.7%** — vs. untreated control on same soil type - **Efficacy duration: 3–5 yrs** — Single application - **Chemical inputs eliminated: −20–30%** — Less synthetic fertiliser and pesticide reaching the soil Controlled trials, to be confirmed in independent field trials. Total per-hectare-per-year gains and payback period. Sources: Agreste, ARVALIS, CTIFL, FranceAgriMer, Euronext. - Crop: Strawberry · Irrigation: €420 · Fertilizer: €90 · Yield Gain: +6 t/ha → €7,200 · Total: €7,710 / ha / yr · Payback: < 4 months - Crop: Apple · Irrigation: €280 · Fertilizer: €68 · Yield Gain: +5.3 t/ha → €2,888 · Total: €3,236 / ha / yr · Payback: ~8 months - Crop: Wheat · Irrigation: €98 · Fertilizer: €53 · Yield Gain: +1.1 t/ha → €248 · Total: €399 / ha / yr · Payback: ~5 years ### Where the soil suffers, HYDROBIO makes the difference. HYDROBIO works across high-value crops, broadacre cereals, perennials and market gardening — with the exact benefit estimated by HydrobioFormul from your soil analysis. - **High-value crops** — Examples: Strawberry and soft fruits, fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry) - **Broadacre crops** — Examples: Wheat and other cereals - **Perennials & market gardening** — Examples: Case-by-case adaptation via HydrobioFormul - **Sandy soils** — Benefit: Maximal gain in water retention - **Degraded soils** — Benefit: Structure and biological life restored - **Arid / water-stressed soils** — Benefit: Increased resilience against drought ### Produce more with less water and fewer inputs. - **Carbon sequestered per cycle: > 0.5 t/ha** — Mycorrhizal networks stabilise soil organic matter across cycles. (Rillig & Mummey 2006 · Zhu & Miller 2003 · IPCC AR6 AFOLU 2022) - **Soil biodiversity restored: ×3** — Microbial activity rebounds, reversing decades of monoculture damage. (Smith & Read 2008 · Barea et al. 2005) - **Nitrate leaching prevented: −25%** — The high-CEC mineral matrix holds nitrogen in the root zone. (Huang & Petrovic 1994 · Kubo et al. 2010) - **Degraded soils made productive: ∞** — Arid, sandy or poor soils restored without excavation or replacement. (FAO/ITPS 2015 · Nair et al. 2011) - **Sdg Intro:** Hydrobio contributes directly to four UN SDGs. Each application restores soil and the systems that depend on it. - **Zero Hunger** — Impact: A measured +18.7% yield gain on the same plot, plus the capacity to bring degraded soils back into production. We help producers grow more on land that would otherwise fail. - **Clean Water** — Impact: +47% water retention reduces irrigation needs. The high-CEC mineral matrix holds nitrogen in the root zone, cutting nitrate leaching by an estimated 25% — groundwater stays cleaner. - **Climate Action** — Impact: More than 0.5 t/ha of carbon sequestered per cycle through mycorrhizal networks. The 3-5 year effect duration means fewer reapplications, and a 20-30% reduction in chemical inputs cuts the carbon footprint of every harvest. - **Life on Land** — Impact: Soil biodiversity restored by an order of magnitude (×3 microbial activity). Arid, sandy, and degraded soils brought back to productivity — without excavation, replacement, or chemical inputs. ### Breakthrough science, simple product. #### Controlled granulometry Precise micronisation, specific surface area ×200. #### Living mineral matrix Mycorrhizae integrated into the minerals — effective even in poor or arid soils. #### Long-lasting effect (3-5 yrs) Soil architecture persists across multiple cycles — costs reduced by 60-80%. #### USPTO patent filed Composition, mechanism of action, and process. PCT extension underway. ### Common questions, direct answers. **Q. What is HYDROBIO?** A hybrid amendment combining a clay-based micronised mineral matrix and a living mycorrhizal consortium — acting on the structure, nutrition, and biological life of the soil all at once. **Q. Is it a fertiliser?** No. HYDROBIO restores the soil's ability to retain water and nutrients and to feed the plant, which reduces the need for fertilisers and irrigation. **Q. What is HydrobioFormul?** Our machine-learning application that calculates the exact composition and dose from your soil analysis and target crop, and simulates expected gains. **Q. Do I need to get my soil analysed?** Yes — it's step 1. The analysis lets HydrobioFormul personalise the formulation. We support you with sampling. **Q. How is it applied?** Simple spreading then light surface incorporation, at soil preparation. A single application covers 3 to 5 years. **Q. Why on-site formulation?** To preserve the viability of the living mycorrhizae, adapt the composition to each soil, and reduce transport and losses. **Q. Are there chemical residues?** No. The technology leaves no chemical residue and is compatible with organic farming. **Q. Which crops and soils?** High-value crops (strawberry, apple…), broadacre crops (wheat), particularly on sandy, degraded, or water-stressed soils. **Q. Is it a GMO?** No. HYDROBIO acts on the soil and on root symbiosis, not on the plant's genome. **Q. When is it available?** First deployments are underway; broader French commercialisation from late 2026 (EU 2019/1009 homologation in preparation). ### Third-party signals. - **Kind:** incubation - **Source:** Jeune Entreprise Innovante (JEI) Recognised as a Jeune Entreprise Innovante by the French government — a status granted to companies with substantial R&D investment. - **Kind:** award - **Source:** Rotary Club of Paris - **Date:** 2026 Hydrobio named Startup of the Year — recognising the formulation's technical novelty and impact potential. - **Kind:** award - **Source:** Open Carca 2025 KUZOG (Hydrobio's parent) — laureate of the 2025 Open Carca entrepreneurial competition. - **Kind:** incubation - **Source:** AgroParisTech — FarmInnLab Hydrobio's semi-industrial pilot programme hosted at the AgroParisTech FarmInnLab incubator. - **Kind:** incubation - **Source:** Paris&Co KUZOG (Hydrobio's parent) incubated at the Paris&Co innovation ecosystem. - **Kind:** grant - **Source:** City of Paris KUZOG awarded a €30,000 industrial-innovation grant from the Ville de Paris. ## Microplantes — in-vitro micropropagation ### Healthy plants, multiplied identically. MICROPLANTES produces healthy, vigorous, true-to-type young plants through micropropagation. More productive, more durable, fully traceable cultures — from the lab to your field. At full capacity, Microplantes will produce approximately up to 10 million vitroplants per year — making it the largest dedicated plant micropropagation facility in France. - **Vitroplants per year at full capacity: Up to ~10M** - **Strategic crop families: 4** - **Varieties in the catalogue: 12+** ### Three core benefits. Tissue culture and meristem cleansing remove viruses and pathogens, producing vigorous and durable cultures with industrial homogeneity — independent of climate. #### Healthy plants Sanitation eliminates viruses and pathogens, for vigorous and durable cultures. #### Consistent quality Each plant is a true clone of the mother plant — homogeneous stands. #### Year-round availability Production planned across the year, independent of climate. ### A 4-step production cycle. Every plant we ship goes through the same controlled production cycle, from initiation to acclimatation. #### Initiation Sterile in-vitro culture of a healthy fragment from a selected mother plant. #### Multiplication Proliferation of micro-shoots on controlled nutritive media. #### Rooting Root development until a vigorous, autonomous plant is obtained. #### Acclimatation Progressive hardening in greenhouse, quality control, and shipment. ### Four crop families, named varieties. We focus our expertise on high-value species that propagate well in vitro, with strong and growing European demand. #### Soft fruits - **Latin:** Fragaria, Rubus, Vaccinium Soft fruits are highly sensitive to viruses, which accumulate through traditional multiplication. Our sanitised plants restore vigour, yield, and taste. ##### Strawberry — Gariguette, Charlotte, Mara des Bois - **Type:** Fragaria × ananassa The star of soft fruits. Virus-free vitroplants, rapid establishment, homogeneous fruiting. ##### Raspberry — Heritage, Tulameen - **Type:** Rubus idaeus Multiplied via axillary buds; vigorous and productive canes. ##### Blueberry — Bluecrop, Duke - **Type:** Vaccinium corymbosum A "super-fruit" in strong growth — in-vitro is the reference method. #### Horticulture - **Latin:** Gerbera, Spathiphyllum, Hosta For ornamentals, in-vitro guarantees homogeneous batches, calibrated and available on demand. ##### Gerbera - **Type:** Gerbera jamesonii A micropropagation classic; high multiplication rate, uniform flowering. ##### Spathiphyllum - **Type:** S. wallisii Robust, easy to multiply in large volumes year-round. ##### Hosta - **Type:** Hosta spp. A prized shade perennial; preserves the variety integrity of premium variegated cultivars. #### Sweet potato - **Latin:** Ipomoea batatas A crop in strong European growth, highly sensitive to viruses transmitted through cuttings. Meristem culture produces sanitised planting material — the basis for a yield leap. ##### Beauregard - **Type:** Orange flesh The fresh-market reference, rich in beta-carotene. Virus-free plant (SPVD). ##### Bonita - **Type:** White flesh Mild flesh, firm texture appreciated in cooking. ##### Murasaki - **Type:** Purple skin A trending variety, rich in anthocyanins — premium/organic segment. #### Date palm - **Latin:** Phoenix dactylifera A very high-value crop, multiplied via somatic embryogenesis: plants true to the mother, healthy, and homogeneous — indispensable for premium plantations and export. ##### Medjool - **Type:** "Queen" date Large and soft, among the most valued worldwide. ##### Deglet Nour - **Type:** Semi-soft date The most exported, fine and translucent — commercial reference. ##### Barhee - **Type:** Round date Caramelised flavour, eaten fresh; very productive. ### From in-vitro plantlets to ready-to-plant material. We adapt the delivery format to your organisation — whether you're a nursery equipped for acclimatation or a grower looking for ready-to-plant stock. - Format: Non-rooted vitroplant (stage 2) · Description: Micro-shoots in flasks, for you to root and acclimate in-house. Most economical and flexible format. · Audience: Nurseries equipped with lab/greenhouse - Format: Rooted vitroplant (stage 3) · Description: Plant rooted in vitro, ready for acclimatation. Secure establishment. · Audience: Nurseries & growers - Format: Acclimated plug (stage 4) · Description: Young plant, hardened in plug, ready to transplant or plant directly. · Audience: Growers & farms - Format: Sanitised mother plant · Description: Indexed, virus-free stock, for your own multiplication programs. · Audience: Breeders & multipliers ### Beyond the catalogue. For projects that need more than a standard order, we offer dedicated services from protocol development to germplasm conservation. #### Contract growing Scale-up multiplication of a variety you entrust to us. #### Protocol development Build an in-vitro itinerary for a new species or variety. #### Viral sanitation Cleansing a variety via meristem culture and thermotherapy. #### Indexing & sanitary tests Detection of major viruses before production. #### Germplasm conservation Secure storage of your genotypes in in-vitro collection. #### Confidential subcontracting Technical support under NDA, including for small volumes. ### Research at the service of plant performance. A significant share of our activity is dedicated to applied research — expanding our catalogue, improving multiplication yields, and supporting breeders in valorising their varieties. #### Protocol development Building in-vitro itineraries for new species and varieties. #### Media optimisation Formulating and testing nutritive media to increase multiplication rates and rooting quality. #### Sanitation & plant health Thermotherapy, meristem culture, and indexing to produce clean material. #### Acclimation Improving recovery rates at hardening, reducing losses. #### Biodiversity conservation Safeguarding old, rare, or heritage cultivars. ### Built for quality and volume. Our laboratory is organised around the major functions of in-vitro production, guaranteeing sterility, traceability, and a smooth production flow. #### Media preparation & sterilisation Weighing, formulation, autoclaving, and washing. #### Transfer rooms (laminar flow) Subculturing and manipulations in sterile conditions. #### Climate-controlled growth rooms Lit shelves with controlled temperature and photoperiod. #### Acclimatation greenhouse Hardening and conditioning young plants before shipment. #### Quality & indexing zone Sanitary controls and documentary lot tracking. Target capacity: approximately up to 10 million vitroplants per year, spread across four production lines with complementary cycles. Capacity scales in steps, in line with demand and investment in growth rooms, transfer stations, and greenhouse area. ### Trust is built on proof. The quality of our plants rests on rigorous processes, from mother plant to delivered plant. Our clients and financial partners expect impeccable traceability — it's a core commitment. #### Sanitary control Selection of healthy mother plants and sanitation through meristem culture. #### Viral indexing Detection tests for major viruses before production. #### Lot traceability Each lot is identified and documented, from culture initiation to shipment. #### Varietal fidelity Controlled protocols guaranteeing genetic conformity to the mother plant. #### Sustainable practice Vigorous plants that reduce inputs and secure yields. ### Common questions from clients and partners. **Q. What is a vitroplant?** A young plant produced by in-vitro culture from a fragment of a selected mother plant. It is healthy and genetically identical to the mother stock. **Q. Are in-vitro plants GMOs?** No. Micropropagation is simply identical vegetative multiplication; it does not modify the plant's genetic makeup. **Q. Why "virus-free" plants?** Viruses accumulate through traditional multiplication and reduce vigour and yield. Sanitation via meristem culture restarts from clean material. **Q. Do you work on small volumes?** Yes. We adapt our services to small as well as large volumes, including research and conservation projects. **Q. Can you multiply my own variety?** Yes, through contract growing and under full confidentiality. A protocol development phase may be needed depending on the species. **Q. What delivery formats?** Non-rooted vitroplants, rooted vitroplants, acclimated plugs, or sanitised mother plants — depending on your organisation. **Q. What are the lead times?** Developing a new protocol can take several months; restocking catalogue varieties is faster. We specify on quote. **Q. Do you ship internationally?** Yes — in compliance with the phytosanitary requirements of destination countries. ## Careers ### Join the team building the future of agriculture. Two companies, one mission — multiply healthy plants and restore soil life. We hire across science, production, operations, and commerce. Open positions are listed below. ### Results We accept spontaneous applications. Tell us what you'd bring and we'll find a fit. ### Laboratory Manager - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Leadership - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Lead the entire laboratory operation, guarantee the sanitary quality of plants, and meet production targets. - Organise and plan in-vitro production across the four production lines - Manage and train technical teams (transfer, media, greenhouse) - Ensure compliance with sterility, quality, and traceability procedures - Oversee sanitary indexing and lot conformity - Track KPIs (multiplication rate, losses, yield, lead times) - Act as the technical interface with clients and partners - Master's in plant biology, biotechnology, or agronomy (Bac+5) - Confirmed experience in in-vitro culture and team management - Strong organisational skills, rigour, leadership - Knowledge of phytosanitary requirements appreciated ### Culture Lead / Transfer Room Supervisor - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Leadership - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Run the transfer rooms day-to-day and ensure rigorous protocol adherence. - Organise the work of the transfer technicians - Control the quality of subculturing and cultures - Manage plantlet distribution, schedules, and consumable stocks - Detect and address contamination events - Onboard new technicians to sterile techniques - Bac+2/3 in biology, horticulture, or biotechnology - Mastery of in-vitro culture techniques and laminar flow work - Team management capability and attention to detail ### In-vitro Culture Technician - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Production - **Contract:** Permanent or fixed-term · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Perform multiplication and rooting operations under sterile conditions. - Subculture and multiply cultures under laminar flow - Prepare explants and manage rooting - Detect and discard contaminated cultures - Update tracking sheets and lot traceability - Maintain the workstation and equipment - Bac to Bac+2 in biology, biotechnology, or horticulture (or equivalent experience) - Precision, manual dexterity, strict aseptic practice - Comfortable with repetitive precision work and teamwork ### Media Preparation & Sterilisation Technician - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Production - **Contract:** Permanent or fixed-term · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Produce nutritive media and run sterilisation — the prerequisite for all production. - Weigh, formulate, and adjust culture media per protocol - Package, autoclave, and store media - Wash and sterilise glassware and equipment - Manage stocks of reagents and consumables - Quality-control the media (pH, gelling, sterility) - Bac to Bac+2 scientific background or lab experience - Rigour, method, safety awareness (autoclave, chemicals) - Organisation and reliability ### Greenhouse & Acclimatation Manager - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Production - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Lead the acclimatation phase and guarantee plant quality through to shipment. - Run acclimatation (humidity, watering, fertilisation, light) - Track recovery rates and reduce losses - Monitor plant health in the greenhouse and manage protection - Organise sorting, calibration, and order preparation - Coordinate the flow between lab and greenhouse - Bac+2/3 in horticulture / plant production - Experience in greenhouse and young-plant management - Observation skills and responsiveness ### Quality & Plant Health Manager (Phytopathology) - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Quality & R&D - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Guarantee the sanitary status of plants and the reliability of traceability. - Set up and run viral indexing and sanitary tests - Select and monitor healthy mother plants - Draft and maintain quality procedures (SOPs) - Manage documentation, phytosanitary passports, and traceability - Conduct phytosanitary regulatory monitoring - Bac+3 to Bac+5 in phytopathology, microbiology, or plant biology - Knowledge of detection methods (ELISA, PCR appreciated) - Documentary rigour and analytical mindset ### R&D Researcher — Protocol Development - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Quality & R&D - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Develop and optimise in-vitro itineraries to expand the catalogue and improve performance. - Design and run experiments (media, hormones, culture conditions) - Develop protocols for new species and varieties - Optimise multiplication, rooting, and acclimation rates - Analyse results and document validated protocols - Collaborate with breeders and academic partners - Bac+5 / PhD in plant biology or biotechnology - Experience in in-vitro culture and experimental design - Autonomy, scientific creativity, rigour ### Production Planning Manager - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Operations & Commerce - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Plan production to deliver the right volumes at the right time. - Build and follow the production plan across the four production lines - Align culture lead times with client orders - Monitor culture stocks and anticipate bottlenecks - Track production performance KPIs - Bac+3/5 in production management, agronomy, or equivalent - Comfortable with planning tools and numbers - Rigour and anticipation ### Logistics & Shipping Manager - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Operations & Commerce - **Contract:** Permanent or fixed-term · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Prepare and ship plants in the best conditions, domestically and for export. - Organise packaging suited to vitroplants and young plants - Manage shipments, carriers, and documents (incl. export) - Maintain inventory and traceability through to delivery - Ensure phytosanitary compliance at shipment - Logistics experience, ideally with living/perishable products - Organisation, reliability, basic English for export ### Business Development Manager - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Operations & Commerce - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) — travel expected - **Mission:** Grow the client portfolio and run accounts from quote to follow-up. - Prospect nurseries, growers, distributors, and breeders - Build quotes and negotiate contracts (incl. multi-year) - Provide technical advice in liaison with the lab - Represent MICROPLANTES at trade shows and events - Commercial and/or agronomic training (Bac+3/5) - Field-oriented, technical curiosity, English for export - Strong relationship and negotiation skills ### Administrative Assistant & Sales Admin - **Company:** microplantes - **Department:** Operations & Commerce - **Contract:** Permanent or fixed-term · Full-time or part-time - **Location:** Boissy-l'Aillerie (95) - **Mission:** Run the administrative operations and follow up on orders. - Handle sales administration (orders, invoices, follow-ups) - Manage reception, switchboard, and document storage - Support HR and current purchasing tasks - Contribute to the administrative traceability of lots - Training in management / administration - Office software proficiency, organisation, versatility ### Field Agronomist — Pilot Sites - **Company:** hydrobio - **Department:** Field Operations - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time · Field-based - **Location:** Occitanie / France (50% travel) - **Mission:** Own the agronomic relationship with our pilot sites — from soil analysis to in-field application and result tracking. - Coordinate soil sampling and pre-application diagnostics on pilot farms - Use HydrobioFormul to translate analysis into per-parcel formulations - Supervise on-site formulation and application by our operators - Track yields, water use, and soil indicators post-application - Maintain the technical relationship with champion farmers and agronomy partners (ARVALIS, CTIFL, Chambres d'agriculture) - Bac+5 in agronomy or plant biology - 3+ years of field agronomy experience, ideally on soil amendments or biostimulants - Comfortable spending most weeks in the field; clean driver's licence - Working French + functional English ### Soil Scientist - **Company:** hydrobio - **Department:** Science - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Paris HQ - **Mission:** Anchor the science behind HYDROBIO — characterise soil behaviour with our amendment across crop systems and feed the HydrobioFormul engine with validated agronomic models. - Design and run lab trials on soil-amendment interactions - Characterise water retention, CEC, and microbial response across soil types - Author the agronomic model parameters consumed by HydrobioFormul - Co-author scientific publications and homologation dossiers (EU 2019/1009) - Liaise with academic partners (AgroParisTech, INRAE) - PhD in soil science, agronomy, or plant biology - Strong experimental and statistical background - Track record of peer-reviewed publications - Bilingual French / English ### ML Engineer — HydrobioFormul - **Company:** hydrobio - **Department:** HydrobioFormul - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time · Hybrid (Paris) - **Location:** Paris (remote-friendly) - **Mission:** Build and improve the predictive engine behind HydrobioFormul — the AI formulation app that turns a soil analysis into a per-parcel recipe. - Design and maintain the predictive models for amendment composition - Productionise the agronomic model + ML pipeline (Python; cloud deployment) - Run continuous evaluation against new trial data - Build internal tooling for the agronomy team to ingest new data - Own the simulator outputs (ROI estimates, gain predictions) - MSc / PhD in machine learning, statistics, or applied mathematics - 3+ years building production ML systems - Comfortable with imperfect, small-N agricultural datasets - Bonus: prior agronomy / agtech experience ### Production Lead — On-site Formulation - **Company:** hydrobio - **Department:** Production - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time · Field-based - **Location:** France — multi-site - **Mission:** Run our on-site formulation operation — mobile units that produce HYDROBIO batches at or near pilot farms, just before application. - Operate the mobile formulation unit (mineral-matrix micronisation, mycorrhizal inoculation) - Execute quality control on each batch (granulometry, viability) - Coordinate logistics with the agronomy team and the farm - Train field operators and ensure HSE compliance - Document each batch into the traceability system - Engineering or technical background (Bac+3 to Bac+5) - Experience in industrial production, ideally with mobile or modular units - Driving licence; willingness to travel weekly - French native; English a plus ### Business Development — Cooperatives & Distribution - **Company:** hydrobio - **Department:** Commerce - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** Paris / France (frequent travel) - **Mission:** Open distribution channels through French cooperatives (InVivo, Terrena, Agrial) and Iberian-Italian input distributors. - Build the pipeline of cooperative-channel and distributor relationships - Negotiate exclusive territorial agreements - Run technical pilots with key accounts - Coordinate with the agronomy team on case studies and field-validation data - Represent HYDROBIO at industry events and trade shows - Master's in business or agronomy - 5+ years in B2B agricultural inputs, biostimulants, or related - Strong network in French/EU agricultural distribution - French + English; Spanish or Italian a plus ### Customer Success — Pilot Site Manager - **Company:** hydrobio - **Department:** Customer Success - **Contract:** Permanent · Full-time - **Location:** France (50% travel) - **Mission:** Own the post-application relationship with pilot sites — track outcomes, capture testimonials, and turn champion farmers into our best ambassadors. - Maintain regular contact with each pilot site after application - Collect data on water use, yield, soil health, and farmer satisfaction - Document case studies and assemble testimonials - Feed observations back to the agronomy and ML teams - Be the friendly face of HYDROBIO with our farmers - Agronomy background (Bac+3/5) - Strong relationship and communication skills - Comfortable splitting time between field and desk - French native; English working level ## Articles ### Microplantes opens talks on a Val-d’Oise production site - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/val-doise-production-project/ - **Published:** 2026-07-08 - **Venture:** microplantes · **Kind:** news - **Tags:** #microplantes #val-doise #boissy-l-aillerie #micropropagation #vitroplants #agoralim #ile-de-france #food-sovereignty #agtech Early-stage discussions with local actors around a Val-d’Oise production site the project would grow to more than 100 people. Nothing is signed yet. Microplantes has opened initial discussions with local actors in the Val-d’Oise about investing in a production site in the département. The discussions are exploratory. No agreement is signed, no site is confirmed, and no timetable is set. We are publishing this note at that stage rather than later, because an unexplained silence gets filled in by guesswork. #### Where the project stands Our laboratory is at Boissy-l’Aillerie, in the Val-d’Oise. The conversations now underway are about whether a larger production site in the same département makes sense: what land would be needed, what the workforce would look like, what phasing would be realistic, and who locally would be involved. Those are the questions being asked. None of them has an answer yet. The ambition, if it goes ahead, is a facility that grows to more than 100 people. That is the scale the project is designed around, not a number anyone has committed to. There is no hiring plan, no recruitment window, and no headcount schedule behind it. - **People at the facility the project is designed around — an ambition, not a commitment: 100+** _Note: Everything in this article describes an early-stage discussion. Treat the figures as the shape of an intention, not as forecasts._ #### Why the Val-d’Oise The first reason is simply that the laboratory is already there, with the people who run it. The second is that Île-de-France is the country’s largest consumption basin, which shortens the distance between a plant leaving an acclimatation greenhouse and the operation that plants it. The third is that the département is currently the site of the largest public agri-food development project in the region. #### Agoralim, described accurately Agoralim is carried by Semmaris — the company that operates the Rungis international market — at the request of the State, under the Plan Val-d’Oise. It is a multi-site programme across four communes in the département: Gonesse for agricultural production, vegetable processing and training; Goussainville for the producers’ trading floor and distribution; Roissy-en-France for a central kitchen and processing; Bonneuil-en-France for last-mile logistics. Goussainville is the first site, on a plot of about 38 hectares with 115,000 to 120,000 m² of floor area, which Semmaris says would generate around 1,500 direct jobs. The Prefect of the Val-d’Oise qualified Agoralim as a projet d’intérêt général on 16 October 2024, following a public consultation held from 10 July to 9 September 2024, and a declaration of intent was published on 3 April 2025. Semmaris’s published timeline puts the start of development works at 2027 and delivery of the first tranche at 2029. French press coverage routinely calls Agoralim a "second Rungis" — the phrasing appears in headlines at Réussir Les Marchés, in Usine Nouvelle, and elsewhere. Its promoters do not use it. Semmaris’s own materials describe Agoralim as complementary to the Rungis market rather than as a duplicate of it. We use their framing, and flag the other as press shorthand. _Note: One more correction worth making plainly: Agoralim is not close to our laboratory. Goussainville sits roughly 34 km east of Boissy-l’Aillerie, at the other end of the département. Same territory, same regional dynamic, not the same locality._ The relevance is therefore economic rather than logistical. A département that is being organised around fresh food, processing and short supply chains is a département where upstream plant production has a reason to sit. That is the argument being tested in the discussions, and testing it is what the discussions are for. #### What is not decided - No agreement has been signed with any partner, public or private. - No site has been selected, optioned or acquired. - No planning application has been filed. - No hiring has started and no recruitment timetable exists. - No production capacity has been committed to any customer on the basis of this project. Our published target of approximately 10 million vitroplants a year remains what it has always been: capacity at full build-out across four production lines, reached in steps, subject to demand and to investment in growth rooms, transfer stations and greenhouse area. This project would be one of those steps. It is not a change to the target, and it is not evidence that the target has been met. #### What happens next More conversations, and the ordinary work of turning an intention into a costed plan. If something is decided, we will publish it here with the same amount of detail we have used to describe the uncertainty. Until then, this is the whole of it. ### Hydrobio's pilot moves to AgroParisTech FarmInnLab - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/agroparistech-farminnlab/ - **Published:** 2026-06-16 - **Venture:** hydrobio · **Kind:** news - **Tags:** #hydrobio #agroparistech #farminnlab #soil-amendment #mycorrhizae #scale-up #field-trials #agtech #pilot-programme Hydrobio's pilot programme is hosted at AgroParisTech's FarmInnLab. Batch consistency, fungal viability and on-site formulation are what a bench cannot test. Hydrobio's semi-industrial pilot programme is hosted at FarmInnLab, the AgTech incubator of AgroParisTech. The programme takes the amendment out of laboratory quantities and produces it at the scale a farm actually consumes. #### What FarmInnLab is FarmInnLab was opened by AgroParisTech in 2024 as a space for experimentation on agricultural innovation, sited at the school's experimental farm at Thiverval-Grignon, west of Paris. It selects projects once a year through an open call, screened in two stages by a steering committee. The asset it offers is the farm itself: about 400 hectares, half in arable crops and half in forage, alongside 190 dairy cattle, 650 sheep, a biomethane unit, roof-mounted solar, and a dairy processing workshop. Companies working on equipment, on agricultural inputs, or on decision-support tools get access to that infrastructure, to the school's analytical and metrology capacity, and to its teaching and research staff. - **AgroParisTech experimental farm hosting the FarmInnLab: 400 ha** #### The gap where soil-amendment claims break Most soil amendments do not fail at the bench. They fail between the bench and the spreader. A formulation that behaves perfectly in a 500-gram batch under a fume hood is a different material at 500 kilograms, and different again after a week in a bulk bag, a lorry, and a centrifugal spreader on a windy morning. This is the usual reason a promising amendment produces excellent trial data and disappointing commercial results. The product that reached the field was not the product that was tested. A semi-industrial pilot exists to close that gap before customers do it for you. #### Three things a laboratory cannot answer ##### Batch consistency Hydrobio's mineral component works because micronisation multiplies its specific surface area by roughly 200. That figure is a property of a particle size distribution, not of a recipe. At laboratory scale the distribution is tight because the quantity is small. At production scale it has to stay tight across a full run, and across runs made on different days from different raw material lots. The pilot measures the spread, not the average. ##### Mycorrhizal viability at scale The biological half of the amendment is alive, which makes it the fragile half. A petri dish tells you a consortium is viable. It does not tell you how many propagules survive being blended into a mineral carrier, bagged, handled, transported, and thrown from a spinning disc. Viability has to be counted at the point of application, on material that has been through the whole chain, or the number means nothing. ##### On-site formulation Hydrobio is formulated on site rather than manufactured centrally and stored, specifically so that living mycorrhizae are introduced shortly before they enter the soil. That is a logistics claim as much as an agronomic one, and it has never been tested against a real farm calendar: dry components delivered, assembled locally to a HydrobioFormul recipe, applied within hours, in weather and on a schedule nobody controls. A pilot on a working farm is the only place that question has an answer. #### Why an agronomy school specifically A commercial pilot site gives scale. An agronomy school gives scale plus instrumentation and independence. Replicated plots, characterised soils with a history of measurement, calibrated analytical equipment, and staff whose professional standing does not depend on the result being favourable. When our controlled-trial figures are eventually put to independent field validation, the method has to be defensible to people who read trial protocols for a living. _Note: Hydrobio's published figures — +47% water retention on sandy soils and +18.7% yield against an untreated control — come from controlled trials. They are not yet confirmed in independent field trials. The pilot programme is a step towards that confirmation, not the confirmation itself._ #### What it enables next Three outputs matter. A production protocol with specified tolerances rather than a laboratory method. A viability figure measured at the spreader instead of at the bench. And a dossier of characterised, replicated data of the kind that homologation under EU Regulation 2019/1009 requires — a file that is in preparation, and that a pilot at semi-industrial scale is the fastest legitimate way to fill. ### Rotary Club de Paris names Hydrobio Startup of the Year - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/rotary-club-paris-startup-of-the-year-2026/ - **Published:** 2026-05-21 - **Venture:** hydrobio · **Kind:** news - **Tags:** #hydrobio #rotary-club-de-paris #startup-of-the-year #soil-health #mycorrhizae #hydrobioformul #water-retention #agtech The Rotary Club de Paris has named Hydrobio its Startup of the Year 2026, citing the soil amendment’s technical novelty and impact potential. The Rotary Club de Paris has named Hydrobio its Startup of the Year 2026, recognising the formulation’s technical novelty and impact potential. #### A jury from outside the sector Most of the prizes a company like ours competes for are judged by people who already work in agriculture or in venture capital. They know the vocabulary — cation-exchange capacity, mycorrhizal colonisation, biostimulant regulation — and they rank you against other companies making adjacent promises. That is useful, and it is also a closed loop. The Rotary Club de Paris is a civic service organisation, not an agtech network. A jury drawn from it evaluates a soil amendment the way anyone outside the sector would: does the problem actually matter, is the mechanism real, and would it change anything for the people living with it. Those questions are harder than they look, because none of them can be answered with sector jargon. #### The problem it was judging A degraded soil fails physically before it fails chemically. Structure collapses, so the soil no longer holds water; water that is not held drains, and takes dissolved nutrients with it; nutrients that leach get replaced with more fertiliser, which leaches in turn. Fertiliser treats the symptom. It does nothing about retention, which is the actual fault. Hydrobio works on retention first. A clay-based mineral matrix, micronised to a controlled granulometry, exposes far more surface to the soil than the same material as coarse grains — roughly two hundred times more. That surface is what holds water and what carries the cation exchange that keeps nutrients in the root zone instead of below it. - **Specific surface area of the micronised mineral matrix: ×200** The second half is biological. A living mycorrhizal consortium travels in the matrix, and its hyphae extend the effective reach of the root system well past the root hairs themselves. The minerals give the fungi a physical scaffold to colonise, which is why colonisation is faster and why the effect is designed to last three to five years from a single application rather than a season. - **Effect duration from one application, with no annual reapplication: 3–5 yrs** #### What "technical novelty" refers to Mineral amendments exist. Mycorrhizal inoculants exist. The claim in Hydrobio is the combination — a mineral matrix that functions as a carrier and habitat for a living consortium rather than a bag of two things mixed at the last minute. A USPTO patent covering the composition, the mechanism of action and the process has been filed, with a PCT extension underway. Filed, not granted. The second novelty is that there is no single product. HydrobioFormul is a supervised machine-learning engine: a soil analysis, a target crop and a climate context go in, and the exact mineral-to-mycorrhiza ratio and per-hectare dose come out, with the reasoning documented. It does not generate text or reason in the abstract. It learns numerical patterns from soil analyses, pedoclimatic data and trial outcomes, and every new trial improves it. A grower does not buy a sack. They get a recipe for their parcel. - **Water retention on sandy soils: +47%** - **Yield against an untreated control on the same soil: +18.7%** _Note: These figures come from controlled trials and are not yet confirmed in independent field trials._ #### What "impact potential" has to survive > Potential is the part of an award that expires. It converts into evidence or it lapses. The honest position is that Hydrobio has strong numbers from controlled conditions and a limited number of seasons in the ground. Controlled trials tell you a mechanism works. They do not tell you it survives a farm — a wet spring, an uneven spreader, a soil nobody characterised properly, a grower with other things to do that week. Only field trials that we neither design nor host will settle that. So the next twelve months are unglamorous. Pilot parcels across a wider range of soil types, with water use, yield and soil indicators measured against untreated controls on the same farm. The EU 2019/1009 homologation dossier, which is in preparation, has to be completed before broader French commercialisation from late 2026. Each returned field result also feeds HydrobioFormul, which is the compounding part: the engine gets more accurate exactly as the evidence base grows. A jury outside the agtech bubble judged the problem worth solving. Whether we solved it is a question for the soil. ### KUZOG is granted Jeune Entreprise Innovante status - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/jeune-entreprise-innovante-status/ - **Published:** 2026-05-06 - **Venture:** group · **Kind:** news - **Tags:** #kuzog #jeune-entreprise-innovante #jei #rd-tax-status #french-innovation-policy #agtech #research-and-development #due-diligence France's Jeune Entreprise Innovante status is not an award. It is an accounting test on R&D spend, checked by the state. Here is what KUZOG had to prove. KUZOG has been granted Jeune Entreprise Innovante status. The status is a French statutory regime for small companies that spend a defined share of their costs on research and development. The wording invites a misreading, so it is worth being exact. JEI is not a prize, a label, or a jury decision. It is a threshold in the tax code, and a company either clears it or it does not. #### The test is arithmetic The regime was created by the 2004 finance act and sits in the code général des impôts. To qualify for a given financial year, a company must satisfy every condition at once — no weighting, no overall impression, no compensating strength: - It must be an SME: fewer than 250 employees, and either turnover under €50 million or a balance sheet total under €43 million. - It must be under eight years old, for companies created from 1 January 2023 onwards. - At least half its capital must be held by natural persons, other qualifying JEIs, public research or education bodies, scientific foundations, or qualifying investment vehicles. - Its activity must be genuinely new — not the restructuring, extension, or takeover of an existing business. - Research and development must account for at least a fixed percentage of its fiscally deductible charges. That last condition is the one that does the work. The threshold was 15% of deductible charges, and was raised to 20% for financial years opened from 1 March 2025. - **Minimum share of deductible charges spent on R&D, for years opened from 1 March 2025: 20%** One fifth of everything a company spends has to be traceable to research — not to product development in the loose sense, and not to the word "innovation" in a deck, but to expenditure meeting the R&D definitions the state applies to the research tax credit, itemised, with identifiable people and work behind each line. #### Why an audit is better evidence than an award Awards test how well a company presents itself. This tests where its money went. A company that markets science but does not fund it fails the ratio, however good the story is, because the denominator includes sales, marketing and general costs. For KUZOG, this means the same claims made elsewhere on this site now sit behind a state-verified spending profile: meristem-culture sanitation and in-vitro protocol development at Microplantes, and at Hydrobio the mineral matrix, the mycorrhizal consortium, and the HydrobioFormul machine-learning formulation engine — the work covered by our USPTO patent filing, which is filed and not yet granted. #### Which ministry, and what the logo means KUZOG holds the status by approval, not by assertion. Eligibility can be declared by a company and then secured through a rescrit — a formal request for a binding administrative opinion — and ours was approved by the tax administration, under the Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances. Whether the work counts as research is assessed separately, by the services of the ministry responsible for research through its regional research and innovation delegations. Two departments therefore sit behind the status: the finance ministry, which approved ours, and the research ministry, which owns the R&D criterion and whose mark we display. Neither handed out a distinction. Between them they verified a spending profile. _Note: The ministry's official title changes with successive French governments. The mark we display reads Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation; the department and its research and innovation delegations are the constant, not the wording._ #### What the status gives, and what it enables next JEI relieves employer social contributions on staff working mainly on research, within annual caps, and local authorities may add a seven-year exemption from business property taxes. A corporate income tax exemption also exists, but only for companies created before the end of 2023. In practice the relief lands on payroll, which is where an R&D-heavy company spends most of its money. It extends the runway of the scientific teams rather than the commercial ones. That is the point of the scheme, and it is the use we intend: field validation of the Hydrobio amendment, the EU 2019/1009 homologation file, and protocol development to widen the Microplantes catalogue. ### Virus-free and true-to-type: what the claim guarantees - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/virus-free-true-to-type/ - **Published:** 2026-04-28 - **Venture:** microplantes · **Kind:** science - **Tags:** #micropropagation #vitroplants #meristem-culture #viral-indexing #thermotherapy #plant-health #traceability #gmo #true-to-type Virus-free and true-to-type are testable claims. Here is what meristem culture, thermotherapy, viral indexing and lot traceability each rule out. Two claims appear on almost every vitroplant order form: virus-free, and true to type. Both are meaningful. Neither means quite what a quick reading suggests. This is what sits behind each one, step by step, and where each step stops. #### Sanitary selection of mother plants Everything downstream inherits from the mother plant. Selection starts there: healthy, identified stock of a known variety, kept and observed under conditions where a problem would be seen rather than assumed away. A production line built on a poorly chosen mother plant is a production line that multiplies the mistake several thousand times. What selection rules out: obviously diseased, mislabelled or unverifiable starting material. What it does not rule out: latent infection. Most single-virus infections are asymptomatic. Visual selection alone will pass an infected plant that looks perfect, which is precisely why the next two steps exist. #### Meristem culture and thermotherapy The biology is favourable and worth stating plainly. Viruses travel fast through mature vascular tissue and slowly from cell to cell through plasmodesmata. The apical dome of a shoot tip has no mature vascular tissue, its plasmodesmatal connections are few and gated, and it divides faster than a virus can advance into it. The tip outruns the infection. So the tip is what we take. A fragment of roughly 0.3–0.5 mm — the dome plus one or two leaf primordia — is excised under a binocular microscope and established on sterile medium. Thermotherapy applied beforehand improves the odds by inhibiting viral replication and restricting movement toward the apex. Combining the two is standard practice for a reason. What it rules out: the great majority of systemic viral infection carried by the source plant. What it does not rule out: all of it. In a published sweet potato protocol, about 85% of plantlets recovered from 0.3–0.5 mm meristems tested virus-free. A high figure, and not a guarantee. Sanitation is a probability, and it has to be checked. - **Size of the excised meristem — small enough to leave the virus behind: 0.3–0.5 mm** #### Viral indexing before production Indexing is the checking step. Sanitised material is tested for the major viruses of its species before it is allowed to enter production, and the result — not the expectation — decides whether the line goes forward. A line that fails is discarded, not shipped with a caveat. What indexing rules out: the specific viruses tested for, down to the detection limit of the assay used. What it does not rule out: anything outside that panel. A negative result means "not detected, for these targets, at this sensitivity" — it does not mean "free of every pathogen known to the species". Nor does it protect the plant from reinfection after delivery. That last point matters commercially. Field trials in sweet potato have shown clean planting material out-yielding farmers’ own material several times over, and have also shown that advantage disappearing after about three successive seasons of on-farm replanting. Clean stock is a renewable input on a cycle, not a permanent state. Anyone selling it as permanent is overselling it. #### Lot traceability from initiation to shipment Each lot is identified and documented from the initiation of the culture through to shipment: source mother plant, sanitation history, indexing results, subculture record, acclimatation batch, delivery. In the EU, plants for planting moving between member states also travel with a plant passport under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031, which carries a traceability code precisely so that a consignment can be traced after the fact. What traceability rules out: silence. If a batch behaves oddly in the field, the record says which mother plant it came from, which tests it passed, and which other lots share that origin. What it does not rule out: the problem itself. Traceability is how you find and bound a failure. It does not prevent one. #### Varietal fidelity True to type means the delivered plant is genetically the variety you ordered — not a seedling of it, not a drifted selection. Micropropagation through axillary buds is genetically conservative: the bud already exists on the mother plant, and culture conditions simply push it to develop. That route offers the strongest fidelity, and it is how our soft fruit and most horticultural lines are multiplied. The honest caveat is that not all in-vitro routes are equal. The literature is consistent that long-term callus culture and somatic embryogenesis do not guarantee genetic fidelity, and that somaclonal variation accumulates with the number of subcultures a line has been through. Date palm, multiplied by somatic embryogenesis, sits on the demanding end of that scale. The controls follow from the biology: capped subculture counts, periodic re-initiation from indexed stock rather than running a line indefinitely, and conformity checks on the output. Fidelity is a managed property of a protocol, not an automatic property of a laboratory. #### The GMO question, answered directly A vitroplant is not a GMO. Genetic modification cuts DNA and inserts sequence that the plant did not have — the genome afterwards is not the genome before. Micropropagation does nothing of the kind. It takes existing tissue and lets it divide, in a jar rather than in soil. Chromosomes and all, the whole plant is copied. The nearest everyday analogue is a cutting. Taking a cutting is vegetative multiplication; nobody calls a rooted cutting a GMO. In-vitro culture is the same operation performed on a smaller fragment, in sterile conditions, on a defined nutrient medium. The medium supplies sugars, salts and plant hormones — all of which the plant makes or absorbs anyway — and no foreign gene is introduced at any point. There is no vector, no transformation step, no inserted sequence. Confusion usually comes from the setting: a laboratory, a sterile hood, a jar under lights. The equipment is doing hygiene, not engineering. What the plant is, it stays. #### Four delivery formats, and who each one suits Clean material is only useful if it arrives at the stage your operation can actually take on. Rooting and acclimatation are the fragile transitions, and where they happen determines who carries the risk. - Non-rooted vitroplant (stage 2) — micro-shoots in flasks, for you to root and acclimate in-house. The most economical and flexible format. For nurseries already equipped with a lab and greenhouse and confident on both transitions. - Rooted vitroplant (stage 3) — rooted in vitro and ready for acclimatation. Rooting is done; hardening is yours. For nurseries and growers with greenhouse capacity but no lab. - Acclimated plug (stage 4) — a young plant hardened in a plug, ready to transplant or plant directly. Both fragile transitions are behind it. For growers and farms who want planting stock, not a propagation project. - Sanitised mother plant — indexed, virus-free stock for your own multiplication programme. You take the clean genetics and run your own scale-up. For breeders and multipliers. The four formats price differently because they represent different amounts of work already done, and different amounts of risk already absorbed. That is the whole choice. #### What the claim comes down to Virus-free means: sanitised by meristem culture, tested for the major viruses of the species before production, and documented lot by lot. True to type means: multiplied by a route chosen for genetic fidelity, under a protocol that limits the drift it is capable of producing. Both are process claims backed by records, and both stop where the records stop. Stated that way, they are worth more than a stronger claim nobody can check. ### Spreading Hydrobio: on-site formulation and field application - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/on-site-formulation-and-application/ - **Published:** 2026-03-10 - **Venture:** hydrobio · **Kind:** science - **Tags:** #soil-amendment #field-application #spreading #on-site-formulation #mycorrhizae #agronomy #soil-preparation #regenerative-agriculture Spreading, timing and dose for Hydrobio — and why a living amendment is formulated on the farm rather than in a factory. What changes in your itinerary. An amendment that works in a trial and cannot be spread with the equipment already in the shed is not a product. Hydrobio was designed around the constraint that a grower will apply it with a machine they own, in a pass they were going to make anyway. This is what that looks like in the field, and why the product is assembled on the farm instead of in a factory. #### Spreading Hydrobio goes out as a dry solid with a centrifugal or broadcast spreader — the same machine used for lime, gypsum or granular fertiliser. There is no sprayer, no injection rig, no dedicated applicator to hire. 1. Spread uniformly across the parcel with a centrifugal or broadcast spreader. 2. Incorporate lightly at the surface, so the amendment is in contact with the future root zone rather than sitting on top of it. 3. For perennials, apply locally at the base of the plant or along the row, then scratch it in lightly. Uniformity is the part worth attention. Every broadcast spreader throws a pattern that depends on the physical properties of what is in the hopper — particle size distribution, bulk density, flow behaviour — and a machine set for a granular fertiliser will not necessarily lay down the same pattern with a different material. Calibrate to the rate on the formulation sheet, and check the transverse distribution with a tray test before doing the whole parcel. Overlap at the bout width the tray test gives you, not the one on the spreader chart. The light incorporation step is not cosmetic. Mycorrhizal propagules have to encounter a root to do anything at all, and roots are below the surface. Contact with the soil volume the crop will actually root into is what turns an application into colonisation. A harrow pass, a rotary harrow or a shallow cultivation is enough; deep burial is unnecessary and moves the amendment below where it is useful. _Note: Spreader settings are material-specific and batch-specific. The exact bulk density and target rate for your parcel are stated on the formulation sheet produced by HydrobioFormul; do not carry settings over from another product._ #### When The natural slot is soil preparation, before sowing or planting. The soil is already open, a pass is already planned, and the amendment ends up in the profile the crop is about to occupy. For a perennial crop already in the ground — an orchard, a soft-fruit planting — there is no soil preparation to piggyback on, so the application is localised at the base or in the inter-row and scratched in. #### Dose The rate is calculated per parcel by HydrobioFormul from the soil analysis, the climate context and the target crop, and typically lands in the range of a few hundred kilograms per hectare. That single application covers three to five years. There is no annual reapplication, which is the point: the cost and the operation are amortised across several crop cycles rather than repeated every season. - **A few hundred kg/ha, applied once, covering 3–5 years: One pass** #### Why the product is formulated on site The alternative would be a generic product manufactured centrally, bagged, and stored for months before it reaches a field. Three things argue against it, and only the first is about biology. ##### Living mycorrhizae do not keep well The biological phase is alive. Propagule viability declines with time in storage, and it declines faster with warmth, with moisture, and with handling. A product formulated in a factory in March and spread in September has spent six months losing the component that does the biological work — and nothing on the bag tells the grower how much is left. Integrating the living consortium shortly before application removes that unknown. The mineral components can wait; the fungi cannot, so they are the last thing added. ##### Composition is set per soil The ratio between the mineral components and the biological phase is not fixed. A sandy soil with low cation-exchange capacity and a degraded soil with a collapsed microbial population need different proportions, and HydrobioFormul calculates them from the analysis of the parcel. A factory would have to choose one recipe and ship it everywhere, or hold stock of many. Assembling on site means the recipe can be per-batch and per-parcel, with the inputs, the dose and the justification documented for each one. ##### Dry components ship denser The mineral components travel dry and dense. Shipping a finished, formulated amendment means moving the same minerals in a bulkier form, with the biology on board and degrading in transit, and accepting losses in handling and storage along the way. Moving the components and assembling locally cuts transport volume, cuts loss, and cuts the carbon footprint of delivering the amendment — which matters for a product whose case rests partly on its environmental balance. #### What changes in your itinerary Almost nothing, and that is the adoption argument. Ahead of the application there is a soil analysis, which many growers already run and which we support for those who do not. The application itself is a spreader pass and a light incorporation at soil preparation — an operation and a machine already in the rotation. Then, for three to five years, nothing. No change to sowing dates. No change to varieties, to the crop plan, or to the equipment fleet. No new spray operation and no product to store on the farm. Irrigation and fertilisation can be reduced as the soil's retention capacity improves, but that is a decision the grower makes on their own observation and analyses, at their own pace, not a prerequisite for the amendment to work. - Before: one soil analysis, and the formulation sheet it produces. - During: one spreader pass and one light incorporation, at soil preparation. - After: no annual reapplication for three to five years. _Note: The performance figures behind this schedule — +47% water retention on sandy soils, +18.7% yield against an untreated control on the same soil — come from controlled trials and are to be confirmed in independent field trials. Homologation under EU Regulation 2019/1009 is in preparation, and the USPTO patent covering the composition and the process is filed, with a PCT extension underway, not granted. First deployments are running now; broader French commercialisation is planned from late 2026._ ### KUZOG backed by the Fonds Parisien pour l’Innovation - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/fonds-parisien-pour-innovation/ - **Published:** 2026-02-16 - **Venture:** group · **Kind:** news - **Tags:** #kuzog #fonds-parisien-pour-innovation #ville-de-paris #bpifrance #innovation-funding #agtech #paris #industrial-innovation KUZOG has been awarded a €30,000 grant by the Fonds Parisien pour l’Innovation, the seed-stage innovation fund run by the Ville de Paris with Bpifrance. KUZOG has received support from the Fonds Parisien pour l’Innovation: a €30,000 industrial-innovation grant from the Ville de Paris. #### What the fund is The Fonds Parisien pour l’Innovation — the FPI — was created in 2009 and is operated by the Ville de Paris together with Bpifrance. It funds companies at the seed stage: the point where a project is technically credible but has not yet been proved at scale, and where private capital is least comfortable. Support at that stage takes the form of a grant of up to €30,000. The eligibility rules describe that stage more precisely than any adjective can. The company must have been registered for under three years, hold its head office in Paris — or a secondary establishment in Paris with its head office in Île-de-France — show at least €15,000 of own or quasi-own funds, and be hosted by an incubator carrying the FPI label. KUZOG is incubated at Paris&Co, which holds it. - **Industrial-innovation grant from the Ville de Paris: €30,000** - **Deployed by the FPI to close to 2,000 companies since 2009: ~€73M** _Note: The €30,000 figure is the grant KUZOG received. The cumulative fund figures are published by Bpifrance and the Ville de Paris._ #### What a public funder means by innovation The FPI does not restrict itself to deep tech, and it says so: its definition of innovation is explicitly not limited to technology. Its stated priority sectors include ecological transition, industry, health, accessibility, the cultural and creative industries, and social innovation. What it screens for alongside novelty is impact. That is a useful filter for agriculture, because agriculture punishes clever ideas that stop at the laboratory door. A formulation that performs on a bench and cannot be produced within a farm’s logistics, at a price a hectare can carry, in a season that lasts three weeks, has not solved anything. The interesting problems in this sector are industrial as much as they are scientific. #### Where the money goes KUZOG runs two businesses on either side of the soil line. Above it, Microplantes multiplies disease-free young plants in vitro and copies them exactly. Below it, Hydrobio rebuilds the soil those plants go into. A grant for industrial innovation funds the part between a validated result and something a farm can actually buy. For Hydrobio that part is on-site formulation. Rather than manufacturing a generic product in a factory and storing it for months — which kills the living mycorrhizae and forces a single recipe onto every soil — the amendment is assembled near the parcel, to the recipe HydrobioFormul calculated for it, shortly before it goes into the ground. Dry components ship denser, assembly happens locally, and the biology is fresh at application. That requires mobile production equipment and the quality control to go with it. For Microplantes the constraint is capacity, and capacity in a tissue-culture lab is physical: transfer stations under laminar flow, lit growth rooms with controlled photoperiod, and greenhouse area for acclimatation. Each of those scales in discrete steps, and each step is a capital decision. _Note: Microplantes’ figure of roughly 10 million vitroplants a year is target capacity at full build-out, not current output. Hydrobio’s performance figures come from controlled trials, to be confirmed in independent field trials._ #### What a grant is not It is not revenue, and it is not evidence. No jury can validate an agronomic claim; only repeated trials on soils we did not choose can do that. What money at this stage buys is sequencing. Hydrobio’s EU 2019/1009 homologation dossier is in preparation, its USPTO patent is filed rather than granted, and its field validation is still ahead of it. > Non-dilutive capital at the seed stage buys one thing worth having: the ability to run the regulatory work and the field work at the same time instead of one after the other. Doing those in sequence would cost years, and each of them is measured in growing seasons rather than sprints. Doing them in parallel is what this funding makes possible. ### How Hydrobio works: minerals that carry living biology - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/how-hydrobio-works/ - **Published:** 2026-02-11 - **Venture:** hydrobio · **Kind:** science - **Tags:** #soil-health #mycorrhizae #water-retention #cation-exchange #soil-amendment #regenerative-agriculture #soil-science #drought-resilience How a micronised clay matrix and a living mycorrhizal consortium act on water retention, cation exchange and root colonisation — and why both are needed. An amendment should be judged on whether its author can name the mechanism. Hydrobio combines a mineral phase and a biological phase, and it acts through three distinct processes. Separating them matters: a grower deciding whether to put a few hundred kilograms per hectare into their soil needs to know which of the three applies to that soil. #### What is actually in it The mineral phase is clay-based and micronised to a controlled particle size, with a second, highly porous mineral component that stores water, air and nutrient ions in an interconnected pore network and releases them slowly. The biological phase is a living mycorrhizal consortium. HydrobioFormul, our machine-learning formulation engine, sets the ratio between the three from the soil analysis of the parcel. Micronisation is what makes the mineral phase do anything at all. A single mineral grain ground to a roughly 10-micron powder presents on the order of 200 times more surface to the soil solution than the grain it came from. Soil chemistry happens at surfaces: water is held there, cations are exchanged there, and microorganisms colonise there. Increasing accessible surface is the lever behind everything below. - **Specific surface area after micronisation, against the unground mineral: ×200** #### Three mechanisms, not one claim It is easy to say a product "improves soil". Three separate processes are involved here, they act on different fractions of soil fertility, and they can be measured independently. ##### 1. Water retention — physical In a sandy soil the failure mode is drainage. Pores are large, water moves through them under gravity, and much of a rainfall or irrigation event passes below the root zone before roots can take it up. Fine mineral particles and porous aggregates change the pore-size distribution: they add small pores that hold water by capillarity at tensions the plant can still overcome. The soil does not receive more water; it keeps a larger share of what arrives in the zone where roots are working. - **Water retention on sandy soils, South Europe and MENA conditions: +47%** ##### 2. Cation exchange — chemical Cation-exchange capacity is the soil's ability to hold positively charged nutrient ions — potassium, calcium, magnesium, ammonium — on negatively charged mineral surfaces, against the pull of percolating water. Low-CEC soils leak. Nitrogen applied in spring is partly gone by mid-season, and what leaves the root zone reaches groundwater as nitrate. A high-CEC matrix retains those ions and releases them back into solution as the soil solution is depleted by uptake. This is retention and progressive release, not fertilisation. The matrix supplies no guaranteed nutrient content of its own; it holds what is already there, or what the grower applies, for longer. The effect is well documented for high-CEC minerals in coarse substrates: Huang and Petrovic measured reduced nitrate leaching and improved nitrogen use efficiency in sand-based root zones amended with a high-CEC zeolite (Journal of Environmental Quality, 1994). Our own working estimate for Hydrobio is a 25% reduction in nitrate leaching. - **Estimated reduction in nitrate leaching · after Huang & Petrovic 1994: −25%** ##### 3. Root colonisation — biological The crops Hydrobio targets — wheat, strawberry, apple — form arbuscular mycorrhizas. The fungus colonises the root cortex and sends hyphae into soil pores far narrower than a root hair can enter, acquiring water and poorly mobile nutrients, phosphorus above all, from a volume of soil the root will never reach. In exchange it receives plant carbon. The reference synthesis of this symbiosis and its nutritional consequences is Smith and Read, Mycorrhizal Symbiosis, third edition (2008); Barea and colleagues review the wider rhizosphere co-operation involved (Journal of Experimental Botany, 2005). The practical result is a root system that behaves as though it were larger than it is. That matters most under water stress, when the difference between reaching moisture in a pore and not reaching it is the difference between a stressed crop and a functioning one. #### Why the combination outlasts either half Applied on its own, a mycorrhizal inoculant faces an establishment problem. Degraded soil offers poor pore habitat, competition from a resident microbial community, and little of the moisture and adsorbed nutrient an incoming propagule needs during the days before it finds a root. Much of the inoculum never colonises anything. That is why a season of visible response is often followed by nothing. The mineral matrix removes that constraint. It arrives in the soil as pore space, held moisture and exchangeable nutrient, distributed through the future root zone — a habitat in which the fungi can survive long enough to meet a root. Colonisation is faster because the propagules are not starting from bare sand. > The minerals act as a physical scaffold for the mycorrhizae. A living mineral matrix, not just a mix. The exchange runs the other way as well. Mycorrhizal hyphae bind soil particles into aggregates and contribute to the organic compounds that stabilise them, which is the mechanism behind their documented effect on soil structure (Rillig & Mummey, New Phytologist, 2006). Aggregation is what makes a structural improvement survive wetting, drying and tillage instead of dispersing after one winter. The mineral supports the biology, the biology stabilises the mineral, and the result is an architecture that persists across several crop cycles rather than one. - **Effect duration from a single application, no annual reapplication: 3–5 years** _Note: The +47% water-retention figure and the +18.7% yield gain against an untreated control on the same soil come from controlled trials. They are to be confirmed in independent field trials. The 3–5 year duration follows from the persistence mechanism described above and from trial results to date; multi-season independent field data are not yet available._ #### What Hydrobio is not Four things are worth stating plainly, because each one is a question we are asked before anything else. - Not a fertiliser. It carries no guaranteed NPK content and is not a substitute for a nutrition plan. It restores the soil's capacity to hold water and nutrients and to feed the plant, which is what reduces the fertiliser and irrigation the crop needs. - Not a GMO. It acts on the soil and on root symbiosis. Nothing in the product touches the plant's genome, and the crop grown in treated soil is genetically the crop you planted. - Not a chemical input. The technology leaves no chemical residue. Formal listing as an input for organic production follows the regulatory route described below. - Not a soil replacement. Arid, sandy and degraded soils are restored in place, without excavation, imported topsoil or substitution. #### Where the technology stands The composition, the mechanism of action and the manufacturing process are covered by a patent application filed with the USPTO, with a PCT extension underway. The application is filed, not granted, and we will say so until that changes. _Note: Homologation under EU Regulation 2019/1009 on fertilising products is in preparation. First deployments are underway; broader French commercialisation is planned from late 2026. Hydrobio is not generally available before then._ ### Why France needs its own micropropagation capacity - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/why-france-needs-micropropagation/ - **Published:** 2026-01-21 - **Venture:** microplantes · **Kind:** science - **Tags:** #micropropagation #vitroplants #meristem-culture #plant-health #food-sovereignty #soft-fruit #sweet-potato #plant-passport #agtech France imports 25 to 30 million strawberry plants a year. Micropropagation is how a country rebuilds its own clean planting stock — and why it matters. Every strawberry field starts as a young plant someone produced somewhere. In France, that someone is increasingly abroad. The fruit trade balance gets discussed. The plant trade behind it, decided a year earlier, does not. #### The plants arrive before the fruit does The French strawberry plant sector is small. Fewer than twenty nurseries work about 207 hectares in Loir-et-Cher, Maine-et-Loire and Lot-et-Garonne, and certified 91 million plants over the 2018–2019 season — roughly €25 million of revenue and 800 full-time equivalents. Base material comes from five in-vitro laboratories. On top of that, the sector imports 25 to 30 million plants a year from Morocco, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, mostly as trayplants, runners or rooted stock. Part of the production moved south over the previous decade, following export markets, labour costs and land that had never carried the crop. - **Strawberry plants imported into France each year: 25–30M** - **French in-vitro laboratories supplying base material for strawberry: 5** _Note: Figures from Réussir fruits & légumes, « Fraise : la filière française des plants s’adapte », 23 June 2020. They describe the strawberry sector, not French plant propagation as a whole._ For scale, look south. Castilla y León alone produces around 950 million strawberry plants a year across some 1,500 hectares and 35 nurseries, 87% of it leaving for Andalusia and the rest of the EU. Northward, the Dutch trade body Plantum describes the Netherlands as the largest exporter of vegetative starting material in the world. Neither position is accidental, and neither is easy to displace. #### Sovereignty is decided upstream French self-sufficiency in soft fruit is thin. Domestic production covers roughly 14% of raspberry consumption and 17% of blueberry consumption. France imports about 21,800 tonnes of fresh raspberries a year, 12,300 of them from Spain, and 8,400 tonnes of fresh blueberries, 5,600 from Spain. Raspberry volumes have grown around 10% a year since 2016. Those are fruit figures, not plant figures, and the two should not be conflated. But they compound. A grower planting more blueberries needs plants in the ground a season before the fruit exists. If those plants are available from two or three countries, the decision is not fully theirs. #### Phytosanitary risk travels with the plant Under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031, plants for planting moving between member states must carry a plant passport. It certifies absence of Union quarantine pests and compliance with the measures set for regulated non-quarantine pests, and it carries a traceability code — which is what makes a suspect consignment findable after the fact. The regime works within its scope, and its scope is the point. A passport attests to listed pests under listed conditions. It does not certify that a batch is free of every virus that costs yield, and it does not remove the exposure of importing most of your planting material through a handful of routes. #### What conventional multiplication does to a crop Vegetative propagation copies everything, including what you cannot see. A runner, a cutting or a slip carries whatever the mother carried. Aphids and nematodes add infections in the field, and the next generation of cuttings carries those too. Viruses accumulate across cycles. Nothing looks wrong. The crop simply becomes less productive than it used to be, and the baseline drifts down. The quantified cases are blunt. Strawberry plants infected with a single virus usually stay asymptomatic. A two-year study on cultivar Camarosa found that asymptomatic plants carrying Strawberry mild yellow edge virus produced significantly less fruit than healthy plants — reductions of 28% to 63%, depending on the parameter and the production cycle. - **Fruit yield reduction in asymptomatic strawberry carrying a single virus (cv. Camarosa): 28–63%** > A plant with no symptoms is not the same thing as a plant with no virus. The gap between the two is where the yield went. Sweet potato is the clearest case, propagated exclusively from vine cuttings and exposed to sweet potato virus disease, the co-infection of SPFMV and SPCSV. In on-farm trials across four Ugandan districts, virus-tested material of susceptible varieties yielded 15.0 t/ha against 2.7 t/ha for farmers’ own material — an 82% difference. _Note: That trial ran under high tropical disease pressure and does not transpose to French conditions. The same study is honest about the limit: after three successive seasons of on-farm replanting the advantage had gone, and the authors recommend flushing out the stock after two cycles. Clean planting material is a recurring input, not a one-off repair._ #### Meristem culture restarts the clock Viruses move fast through mature vascular tissue and slowly from cell to cell through plasmodesmata. The apical dome of a shoot tip has no mature vascular tissue, its plasmodesmatal connections are few and gated, and it divides faster than the virus can follow. The tip is often clean when the plant around it is not. Meristem culture exploits that. A fragment of 0.3–0.5 mm — the dome plus one or two leaf primordia — is excised under a microscope and grown on sterile medium, thermotherapy beforehand having slowed viral replication. In a sweet potato study, about 85% of plantlets recovered this way tested virus-free. Eighty-five per cent is not a hundred, which is why sanitation is followed by viral indexing rather than treated as sufficient. #### Then multiplication does what cuttings cannot Once a clean line exists, in-vitro multiplication scales it at a rate field propagation cannot approach. Each subculture divides one shoot clump into several, and the cycle takes weeks rather than a season. Growth is geometric, it runs through winter, and it is bounded by shelf area and staff hours rather than weather. _Note: Multiplication through axillary buds is genetically conservative. Long-term callus and somatic embryogenesis cultures are not: the literature is clear that they do not guarantee genetic fidelity, and that variation accumulates with subculture number. Hence capped subculture counts and re-initiation from indexed stock._ #### What it would take Rebuilding upstream capacity is shelf area, laminar flow stations, growth rooms, greenhouse space and trained hands. Microplantes is building toward approximately 10 million vitroplants a year at full build-out, across four production lines with complementary cycles — soft fruit, horticulture, sweet potato and date palm. Capacity comes in steps, tied to demand and to investment. _Note: The ~10 million figure is target capacity at full build-out, not current output. Becoming the largest dedicated micropropagation facility in France is a stated ambition at full capacity, not a present fact._ The argument for doing it in France is not protectionism. It is that the plants a country grows determine what it can harvest two years later, that the science of producing clean ones is established and reproducible, and that a supply chain with more origins survives a bad year somewhere else. ### KUZOG named an Open Carca 2025 laureate - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/open-carca-2025-laureate/ - **Published:** 2025-12-11 - **Venture:** hydrobio · **Kind:** news - **Tags:** #hydrobio #open-carca #carcassonne-agglo #occitanie #soil-amendment #water-stress #soil-regeneration #agtech Carcassonne Agglo has named KUZOG a laureate of Open Carca 2025 for Hydrobio, a soil amendment built for regions living with water restrictions. Carcassonne Agglo has named KUZOG a laureate of Open Carca 2025. The entry was Hydrobio, our soil amendment. #### What Open Carca is Open Carca is the entrepreneurial competition run by Carcassonne Agglo with the local business-creation and business-support organisations. It is open to anyone: a project that has not been incorporated yet, a student, an employee changing careers, an association, or a company already trading. Entries are split into two tracks — Émergence for projects that are not yet companies, Développement for businesses already operating. The format is two days at Carcassonne of workshops and working sessions with entrepreneurs, coaches and experts, closing with pitches in front of a jury. It is a regional competition rather than a national one, and for a product like ours that is the interesting part. #### Why a jury in the Aude asks better questions The Aude is a wine département on a Mediterranean coastal plain, and it spends a large part of the year under prefectural water-use restrictions. Alert levels are set watershed by watershed. When the alluvial water table drops, irrigation schedules and volumes are capped by decree. Nobody there needs to be persuaded that water is the binding constraint on agriculture; they already farm around it. > A grower who has lived through three restricted summers does not ask whether soil water matters. They ask how long the effect lasts. That changes the questions you get. Elsewhere the first question is market size. In Carcassonne it is what happens on ground that has been farmed hard for a century, in a year with no spring rain, and whether the effect is still measurable in the third season. #### What we entered Hydrobio is a hybrid mineral-biological amendment. A micronised clay-based mineral matrix holds water and nutrients in the root zone; a living mycorrhizal consortium extends the reach of the root system beyond it. The minerals act as a physical scaffold for the fungi, which is why root colonisation is faster and why the effect is designed to persist rather than wash out. It is applied once, at soil preparation — spreading, then light surface incorporation — and is designed to work for three to five years instead of being reapplied every season. Which recipe goes onto which parcel is not a catalogue choice. HydrobioFormul, our machine-learning formulation engine, calculates the composition and the per-hectare dose from that parcel’s soil analysis, its crop, and its climate exposure. - **Water retention, measured on sandy soils: +47%** - **Yield against an untreated control on the same soil: +18.7%** _Note: Both figures come from controlled trials. They are not yet confirmed in independent field trials._ Sandy and degraded soils are where a mineral matrix has the most to hold on to, which is also where the Mediterranean south of France has the most to gain. That overlap is the whole reason we entered a competition in the Aude rather than a larger one somewhere else. #### What it enables next An award is not a field trial. What Open Carca gives us is a way into the Occitanie ecosystem: the agglomeration’s economic-development team, and the local support network it works with — R.MINE among them, already one of our partners. Both matter when the next task is finding pilot parcels and the growers willing to host them. That is the task. Hydrobio’s numbers rest on controlled trials, and controlled trials are where a soil product starts, not where it finishes. They have to be repeated on working farms, on soils we did not select, across enough seasons to test whether the three-to-five-year figure holds outside a trial plot. Wider French commercialisation follows EU 2019/1009 homologation, which is in preparation. Occitanie is where the evidence should come from, because Occitanie is where the problem is worst. ### KUZOG enters the Paris&Co incubator - **URL:** https://www.kuzog.com/blog/paris-and-co-incubation/ - **Published:** 2025-11-19 - **Venture:** group · **Kind:** news - **Tags:** #kuzog #paris-and-co #incubation #agtech #ville-de-paris #innovation-policy #distribution #export KUZOG joins Paris&Co, the innovation agency of the City of Paris. Why an agricultural company incubates in the capital rather than the countryside. KUZOG entered the Paris&Co incubator in November 2025. Paris&Co is the economic development and innovation agency of Paris and its metropolitan area, and it runs one of the larger thematic incubation networks in Europe. #### An agency, not a landlord The distinction matters. Paris&Co is not a desk rental with a logo attached. It is the instrument the City of Paris uses to turn innovation policy into companies. Around 500 startups pass through its programmes each year, across roughly a dozen thematic platforms — sustainable food, circular economy, urban systems, mobility, tourism, health. Each platform is built around a standing group of large corporates and public institutions, more than a hundred of them, that bring problems rather than advice. - **Startups supported by Paris&Co each year: ~500** The programmes also include experimentation: a solution is tested in real conditions, on infrastructure the partner institution actually owns and operates, with that institution accountable for the result. For a company selling a physical product into a conservative sector, that is the difference between a pitch and a reference. #### Why an agricultural company incubates in Paris The obvious objection is that agriculture happens in fields, and there are no fields in central Paris. The objection describes the wrong half of the business. The technical work already sits where it belongs. Microplantes runs its micropropagation laboratory in the Val-d'Oise, because that is where the growth rooms, the transfer stations and the acclimatation greenhouse are. Hydrobio's amendment is formulated on site, on the parcel it was calculated for, because living mycorrhizae do not survive months in a warehouse. Neither of those operations moves to a city, and neither should. What is decided in Paris is everything around them. Cooperative buying groups and input distributors set their national listings from head offices in the capital. Regulatory files are read there: a soil amendment sold across the EU needs homologation under Regulation 2019/1009, which is in preparation for Hydrobio. Export routes to MENA markets run through public agencies and trade bodies that are concentrated in one square kilometre. So is the capital that funds a production laboratory or a formulation unit. A young company with a laboratory and no route to market has built the expensive half and skipped the decisive one. #### What an incubator supplies that money does not Grant money is useful and finite. What an agency of this kind supplies is harder to buy: - A partner network of large companies and public institutions that an eight-person company cannot cold-call its way into. - Standing contact with public buyers and funders who have already decided that innovation is part of their mandate. - Scrutiny from people who assess several hundred companies a year and recognise a weak claim on sight. - Presence inside an ecosystem where investors, journalists and public agencies are already looking. The last point cuts both ways, which is the point. An incubator that reviews this many companies is also a filter. Being admitted is a small piece of external evidence; it is not a result, and we do not intend to present it as one. #### What it enables next KUZOG already holds a €30,000 industrial-innovation grant from the Ville de Paris. The incubation adds the network around it. The near-term use is specific: open distribution conversations with cooperatives and input distributors, advance the EU 2019/1009 homologation file, and put the Microplantes capacity plan in front of the institutions that finance industrial build-out. The science is made in a laboratory and proven in a field. It is sold, financed and exported from a city. KUZOG needs both addresses.