27. Trying Things, Podcast Discovery, and the Wonders of Algae w/ Kirk Griffin and Zach Howe

Do you like podcasts? Do you love algae? Well, you're in luck! My guests today, Kirk Griffin and Zach Howe are experts in both of those things! Tune in as we talk about their podcast, the Podcast Discovery Show, where they review a new podcast every week so you can find new shows to love! We also talk about their business, True Algae, and find out a lot about these crazy little organisms and how they can help us in sustainable crop production. We had a lot of fun recording their episode and I hope you have a lot of fun listening to it!

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Transcript

Vikram Baliga : 0:18

What is up plant people? It's Tuesday the 15th of September somehow 2020. And we're back with another episode of the plant typology podcast, the show where we dive into the lives careers ambitions, and all kinds of other things have really cool plan people to figure out what makes them tick. What keeps them doing what they do and what keeps them coming back. For more, this is Vikram Baliga, your host and as always, I'm just so happy to be with you today. How's it going? Or is your is your week starting off? Well, so far? I hope it is. I know things are still weird and crazy, but I hope you're hanging in there. And I hope you're doing okay. We are talking algae today. What is it? What does it do? How can we use it to grow plants? Does it have names? Do they have ambitions? You will learn the answers to some of these questions through today's episode. A couple of things first, as always, I want to plug our partners Khan Ridge, who makes all kinds of econ related goodies, ships them all over the universe. They're a great local business here in Lubbock, America. They're supportive of our local economy and our local community. And they really just makes an excellent products. So check them out at econ ridge.com. Use the promo code plant people all one word all lowercase at checkout for 10% off your order. The other one is local lbk. So if you are in the Lubbock America area, or if you ever come through here for any reason, it may be worth checking out local lbk for $5 a month you get a great membership card that gives you discounts on all kinds of businesses all over town and your purchase goes into Supporting the local economy helping with advertising for businesses, and just general business development in this area. So check out local ob k.com. You can also find links to both of these in the show notes if you'd like more information. So I had posted something on Twitter. Yesterday day before I don't really remember, time just runs together right now, about coffee. I talked about coffee a lot. And I'm always drinking coffee when I record I'm drinking coffee right now. And I asked if people might be interested in hearing more about what I'm drinking, in case they're interested in getting coffee have their own Now, none of these businesses are sponsoring me to do this. I just love coffee and I'm happy to talk about all different places I get it and all the different ways that it's brewed and made and all that kind of stuff. So I am drinking today at TNS planus roasters. Oh, good lord, I'm reading the name m sulloway. See Tara ha, I'm sure I pronounced that wrong. Roast it's, I believe a medium or roast It's really very good I ground it this morning I prefer whole bean coffee that I grind myself and I ran it through the crappy drip coffeemaker I have here at the greenhouse. But it's really a great coffee a light but full flavor. I don't know about the caffeine content sometimes these lighter and medium roast actually have a very high caffeine content and um, but it's it's a great coffee it drinks a very smooth I drink it black usually but the flavors are good. It has wonderful, kind of earthy notes in it and I think it's something you'd really enjoy. So check out terrorists, planets, roasters calm and carry Mayfield was on a previous episode talked about his coffee some and we talked about plant breeding as well. So go check them out and if you need some coffee, hit them up and they will mail it to your place of residence or your mail receptacle wherever that is. Lately I have been trying to put in trailers for different shows at the end of these episodes, but today, I'm not going to because My guests, Zack and Kirk, from the podcast discovery show are folks who essentially listen to different podcasts and talk about them on their show. And we cover a lot of ground, we actually talk about a bunch of podcasts that we really like during this episode. So, in lieu of putting in an actual trailer, I just encourage you to look up all of the different shows that we discussed in this episode. They're all great, and they're all things that you would enjoy. Turns out that these guys in addition to making a great podcast about podcasts work for and run and algae business, where they're making bio fertilizers and other bio products from algae byproducts. And it's really fascinating. I didn't honestly know a whole lot about algae. But they schooled me on some of that and told me about all the benefits that we can get from using a sustainable source of nutrients like algae in our agricultural production system. So it's really an interesting episode. I kind of nerd out about algae a bunch. I'm sure you're very surprised that I nerd out about stuff. But I think that's all I got. I just want you to really enjoy this episode. Like I said, Go check out all the different podcasts we discussed today. Grab yourself a nice bag of roasted coffee, brew some warm bean water goodness, enjoy. Episode 27 of the plant apology podcast with Kurt and Zach from the podcast discovery show. All right, well, we are up and running with a another interesting episode of the plant apology podcast and you know listening to this whenever this comes out, this is kind of irrelevant to you at this point, but we're actually live streaming this on the Facebook group of my two guests. And I'm hosting a watch party because technology is ridiculous. So we have like all kinds of work arounds and, and all of that. So I'm here with Kirk and Zach from the podcast discovery show. How are y'all doing today?

Unknown Speaker : 6:08

Doing great and good? Yeah, really good. We're really excited to get to talk to you. We've uh, it's been great meeting you and then finding your show and everything like that. So yeah, we were pumped when you heard you want to talk to us?

Vikram Baliga : 6:20

Yeah. Well, and and it's interesting because like, I've gotten to interview quite a few podcasters recently and and what's cool is so many of this like little podcast group we've were in that I've discovered on Twitter and everywhere else. I think we kind of got connected on Twitter through chomo from the varmints podcast, which you should also be listening to, um, but like, there's a lot of people in, in this group that that do podcast stuff. And so one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you all is because you all are with a really cool company called True algae. And I know very little about algae except that there Kind of plants and kind of not. not wrong. Um, you know, so we'll talk about that here in just a little bit as we as we kind of get into this, but, um, so why don't y'all kind of introduce yourselves a little bit more Tell me about your background and I guess tell our guests how you got into doing plant stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 7:20

Turkey you want to go first because you're the one who's like, had the life of plant stuff for sure.

Unknown Speaker : 7:27

So I was actually going to college to become a pastor and that's what I was gonna do. I was at Liberty University I was, technically I wasn't a pastor, I wanted to be a an aviator, like flying missionaries in and out of, like, third world countries and stuff like that. But then life hit and me and my wife, she she went with me to college. She followed me up there. We were dating since high school and she didn't like the college life. I enjoyed it a lot. But so I ended up moving back home for her and It's kind of hard to do a distance learning for aviation classes.

Unknown Speaker : 8:06

So I,

Unknown Speaker : 8:09

I pivoted, and

Unknown Speaker : 8:12

essentially, my dad had a plant nursery at the time, took over the plant nursery, and basically was ornamentals and stuff like that. But that was right at the beginning of the housing market crash. And there was no business and in that, because people aren't building houses, they're not landscaping. And so, I pit we did another pivot, and I was like, hey, pot people got to eat. And so we actually started farming. I actually started with half acre of squash. That was the first time I ever found anything. And I got the bug. So like, so hard. I will say, I didn't know anything about farming starting it, and I grew that half acre and I don't think price went below, like $30 a box that year. And apparently that was maybe the best squash year in history. And so I'm just gonna be I'm gonna become a millionaire and turn this whole property into farm and I'm just gonna grow squash. It's so easy. And I don't think I ever got a price above like $20 after that, and as low as like five bucks anyway, long story short, I farmed for almost seven years and ended up getting all the way up to I mean, it's still relatively small farm I got up to 30 acres, about two different locations. But I was always growing something I always had. I had different crops. I didn't just have 30 acres planted in one thing. I would have, you know, okra in the summer, cucumbers and squash and the fall in the spring and strawberries in the winter and onions with them. And we did. I mean we just we did everything. We did so many different crops. So I did that for A long time got hit with one really bad strawberry season and strawberries are very, very capital heavy, especially at the beginning of the season and a lot, a lot to get your money back. And it was a very bad year for production and for the market. And a lot around here, it's kind of a thing you see who goes out of business. Well, there was a year that I went out of business. And I had to pivot and I worked for a few small things from there like another farm or somewhere else somewhere else. But I was always in the realm of agriculture, eventually ended up at a ag research company called Pacific ag research. This branch was Florida ag research, and we did trials for big companies and small companies that would make any sort of biological or chemical or fungus or anything, I mean, just anything and up to like plastics and stuff. Like that anything that do with agriculture, they would trial it for them. Yeah. And through there, which was amazing job, it was really cool. I was going all over the place. I was going to do a lot of citrus trials. I do all the applications and stuff like that I do all the evaluations and I learned a lot. But I met this Korean guy by doing one of his trials on watermelons. And his product was he called it copia because it was chlorella. His method of growing it was he called it a utopia for chlorella. So he called Loki because no one ever pronounced it right, they did not know. So you're like topia, and some of the farmers around here like that sounds like a venereal disease.

Vikram Baliga : 11:48

Don't sell me that.

Unknown Speaker : 11:51

But um, so he, he had this product and I'm not gonna lie I'd seen so many of the products that I've been trialing A lot of times I didn't see any results at all. And I was actually seeing something going on in his watermelons, and a substantial bit of growth. They were sweeter watermelons, it was a lot of things. And I'm like, how are you getting this from algae? I'm a farmer. And I would never believe this. This doesn't make any sense to me. Right. And of course, you know, you had all these reasons and stuff like that. Long story short, which started been pretty long. Yeah. He's like, I can only be in the US for three months. And I have to go back to Korea. Do you have anybody that you know, that you trust that might be able to run the company here in Florida, while I'm gone? And I'm like, I'll send you a friend or two. So I sent him a friend. The guy didn't. He never worked outside and he's like, I don't think I can do that. And I asked him finally I'm like, Okay, well, how much are you willing to pay? He told me the number and I'm like, Okay, I did the math in my head. I'm like, that's almost double what I'm making right now at this research company. I think I might. I think I might ask him if you'll hire me. And at first he didn't want to because, you know, you know, it's kind of a conflict of interest you work for the company, and I'm like, Look, I'm just, I'm willing to, if you'll think about it, he really liked me. And I was actually the first paid employee for the company. hiney. I was, it was me, in a greenhouse, almost the size of this office. It was tiny. He had built it himself with like a welder that was this big, and some metal he bought at Home Depot. And that's where he started, he had brought three small units that we could make 30 gallons of product per day. And that was it. And so he left and I took over the I watched everything while he was out at you know, back in Korea, because the CEO who he had hired, it was Uh, in in Virginia, he was the the guy that he had picked to kind of run the money end of it here in the US. And so I was the first paid employee for true algae. Way back in the day, it was almost almost three years ago now.

Vikram Baliga : 14:14

Wow. That's pretty cool. That's that's an interesting story. It's funny that he was like, Okay, I'm leaving the country. And I need someone to do this for me. And, I mean, that's but it's cool that he finally decided to hire because that's a lot of trust, right? Like to say, Okay, I'm gonna try to run this country, the company from literally the other side of the world, literally the other side of the planet.

Unknown Speaker : 14:39

Yeah. And it's, it is still difficult because when we're working, he's sleeping. And, you know, it's it's the opposite, you know, time and it's just, it is it sometimes is still complicated, but yeah, it was it was it was really neat. And it was a risk because my wife's like, this is a tiny company. It's a startup, you know, what if it doesn't take off You know, you've got a good job now you got insurance and stuff like that, like, you know, life is risks. You just got to take them sometimes. Yeah, like worst case scenario, it looks good because I'm working for a biotech company. It looks awesome on my wrist. Yeah.

Vikram Baliga : 15:14

So Zach, how did you get plugged into all this? What's your background?

Unknown Speaker : 15:17

Yeah, and I I'm, uh, I have a finance degree. And while I was in school, I was working for a real estate company who set up essentially an angel funds. So think under $25,000, Angel fund type grants and loans and things like that, okay. And I kind of just got the bug for startups in general, for kind of that life of trying to theory craft, how to how to build out a business and try and find people who have ideas they're passionate about, and turn that into something that can make them money. And so I kind of got into that for a long time. And there was a long time where I kind of just was like, No, we need to do something more like traditional find something that there's not that kind of risk involved. But then I just kept doing the same thing. I kept going back to it. You know, I kept going back to startups and things Like that. And the last one I worked for before true LG was a there was an internet type startup, they wanted to democratize the internet. And I firmly believed in the like the entire idea behind it and everything like that, but there was just some executive execution problems as maybe a way to say it diplomatically. That, uh, it ended up making me look around. And I've known Kirk, we went to high school together, we've we've known each other forever. And so I knew what he was up to. And I was like, Hey, are you guys looking for people I'm, I kind of do whatever needs to be done at startups. And that was kind of my thing there. So I didn't have necessarily like an ag background. I was always more of a hobbyist. You know, I did always appreciate having plants around me and like being able to grow them and things like that. And I even one of the things that I did when I was fresh out of college that it still kind of messes with me. I had established like a, we've seen the rise of like tiny, tiny homes right now. And so About when I was right out of college, so like 2011, I had no idea how to do anything. And I essentially built out this whole business plan of shipping container homes that would be off grid, and have like food forests and stuff built around it and all of these types of things. And now I see it taking off. And it's like, oh, man, if I knew what I was doing even a little bit, I could have been way ahead of this curve. But ya know, I was always just interested in kind of growing things around me. And then also, I always appreciated forward thinking green technologies as well. So then I kind of I talked to Kirk a little bit about kind of what the company was about. And it just seemed to take a lot of the boxes. So I've learned a lot more about kind of the the plant world since then. But I did at one point work on Kirk's farm with him too. So it was one of the things that I'd had dabbled in a little bit, but now I'm just now minute.

Vikram Baliga : 17:53

Yeah, no, it sounds like I mean, I hope so. Right? You're, you're doing the thing and man, it's like, I hear these stories. A lot. And yours, I think is is really interesting because I've, um, you know, on the show, we've talked to lots of like, academics and stuff like that, that are like, Oh, I started in this major and then I changed into playing major. I mean, that's kind of what I did. But I like that you all have kind of I like getting the kind of the industry perspective on all of this, right? Because you've done you've been in the trenches, right? You've done the the work in farming, you've done the work in finance. And so it's like, it sounds like through your lives and careers, you've kind of like been collecting all the pieces you needed for this really cool business and it's it's interesting to see how life works out sometimes I think and just you know, and it's weird because like, as you're going through some of this stuff, you don't really see the big picture. It's like you're you build skills, you build all these things, and eventually it turns into something new and something different. I think that's pretty cool.

Unknown Speaker : 18:57

Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I like you said you don't Life works in crazy ways. And a lot of times you're like what's going on? I, this doesn't feel like I'm being successful or anything. I worked at that farm for seven years, my farm. And after that, I think I had like four jobs in the matter of two years. And it felt I felt so horrible. Because I was like, I just can't. I'm not doing what I want to do. And I feel like I'm not being successful. But during that I worked at a farm that had 600 acres, and I was running as many as up to like 300 people at a time managing. And then I got a job offer at a plant nursery, which was 100 acres of nursery and inside citrus, they had 40 acres of greenhouse inside citrus. And I was a citrus manager. And then they cut budget and fired all the managers and I was like, Well, I'm back on my butt again. And that's when I started working for the research company. So what is inagh I've farmed myself, I've ran farms, or managed farms. And then I've worked in the nursery slash citrus part. And I've worked in the research and all of it came together to where I'm at now. And I'm like, I felt like such a failure, but I was getting experienced in all of these different facets of agriculture, that most people only touch one, and I was able to get experience in all of them.

Vikram Baliga : 20:29

Well, and that's and that's such a good message, because that's something we talk about a lot on the show is like, Okay, you've studied agriculture, you've got your shiny, new, you know, Bachelors of Science degree in hand. What do you do? And I think that a lot of and I don't want to, like, say that a lot of people do this, but something that I think I did coming out of school was like, Okay, this is what I have studied. This is what my degree is in, and this is what I'm going to do and that's the way my life has to go. But I I think a good message for not just students, but anyone getting into business and getting into the industry is that just, it's okay to just kind of do everything, right. It's just it's okay to, to, even though it sucks in the, in the moment sometimes like that string of like four jobs in two years probably taught you a whole heck of a lot that kind of drives you forward. So I think that it's I think that's such a good message to send that it's like don't get discouraged sometimes when some of this weird stuff happens. It's like, No, it's just preparing you for the next thing. Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker : 21:31

Yeah, I think all of these things add a piece to your experience in general and you end up benefiting from it even if it's uncomfortable at the time for sure.

Vikram Baliga : 21:39

Yeah. So um, let's I'm trying to decide which which one I want to tackle first podcast or LG.

Unknown Speaker : 21:48

No, and the nice that's another one of those things like you were talking about where we've been podcasting for a long time. And now we have the opportunity to start one that's kind of work partnered and do something that's a long time. Same line. So it's just some little thing that we had always done for a hobby for a long time now. And it ended up being something that we are now able to turn into something we're doing. That's gonna be a cool message point for for geologists as well, for sure.

Vikram Baliga : 22:13

Well, so let's start with the podcast discovery show, then. How did this come about? because y'all are like, what, like, hundreds of episodes in at this point, right? Like you're, you're you're pretty deep into this thing.

Unknown Speaker : 22:25

Yes. We are actually. Part of the reason we had you recommend one is because we're like, we have to be at about 100 episodes, we should do like a special thing. And so we kind of guesstimated but then Kirk looked on Spotify. I think we're over 200 correct. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 22:41

Yeah, we're, that's why we did 100 ish. I was gonna say exactly. We've been saying let's do our hundred celebration for almost a year.

Unknown Speaker : 22:49

I think that's the main issue is that we hesitated on the actual execution of it. But yeah, we've been filling it as 100 ish.

Unknown Speaker : 22:57

celebration.

Vikram Baliga : 23:00

That's, that's really fun. I mean, that's really funny cuz like, I'm early enough in this that I like, you know, I'm still at the point where like, I can name all my like podcast episodes, but at some point it's just like, yeah, I think I talked about that at I don't know, maybe Yeah. Oh yes. So how did the show start because it's just just as an overview it's a really cool show where the guys listen to different different podcasts across genres and across like, themes and all kinds of stuff and then discuss it on their show and and an episode of I was like, I was pretty early in podcasting when I got a message from y'all saying, Hey, we're gonna talk about your show and I was like, really people listen to this. I had no idea and and so how did how did that start? What How did you come up with the idea?

Unknown Speaker : 23:47

So it kind of just came out with I was the one that just listened to a radio and I still do listen to a ridiculous amount of podcasts just like an embarrassing Mmm. embarrassingly large amount of hours devoted to listen to podcasts. When I wake up in the morning when I'm taking the shower, brushing my teeth. While this nobody gets I don't listen to music hardly anymore, just podcasts. And especially when I was farming, I was on a tractor for so many hours all by myself. And that was my company was podcasts. So I would always when I would hang out with my buddies, Zach and Josh, I would be the one to be like, Hey, did you hear about this podcast? And then Zach and Josh both listen to a few. And Josh back. When did you listen to this one. And so we just started doing this back and forth. And like, man, it'd be cool to have a podcast one day ourselves. I had wanted to do it forever, but we had no clue where to even start. And we're like, well, let's just do a podcast about podcasts. I think my first name for it was the podcast podcast, which was that wouldn't didn't stick. But and that's that's where it started. And then we kind of Built a little bit of a broader discovery when we, you know, brought on the the other discovery show where we talk about a lot of the other things we discovered not just podcast. But yeah, that's where we got the ideas just bouncing off each other new awesome episodes of podcast that we had listened to

Unknown Speaker : 25:20

that yeah, that's fun. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I think we both just really appreciate discovering new stuff. And Kirk loves podcasts so much that anytime he hears about new and he loves it, he will binge listen to it over a weekend, and then we're on to the next one. And it's the same thing with kind of anything else. It's I've done a spin off show based on music, we have the other discovery show that's based on just anything else. Anything else that we think is cool that we've discovered throughout the week. So it's been a it's been a really fun thing to just kind of have that constant search going on.

Vikram Baliga : 25:48

That's, that's really cool. So okay, you mentioned that, you know, you messaged me a couple days ago, a couple weeks ago, a time has no meaning anymore like

Unknown Speaker : 25:56

everything one it has. This entire year is in its own special category.

Vikram Baliga : 26:01

Yeah, we're like in some kind of weird bubble where it's been one long freakin day since March. And it's just meaningless. But, like Elon asked me to recommend a show. And I was like, I pulled out my phone and I was like, Okay, I have like, 80 podcasts that I'm subscribed to how do I and I obviously, I'm not caught up on literally any of them. Because it's impossible. Um, so scrolling through and I ended up recommending petri dish Sean's a Twitter podcast friend and runs really interesting. I think fun show. How, and also had to go back through your catalog and make sure you've already talked about it. How do you pick shows is it just literally just how I found this this week? Do you do you take mostly recommendations? Is it just a mix of everything?

Unknown Speaker : 26:49

Honestly, we very rarely take recommendations because it's one of those things where we didn't want to get to that place where just anybody who sent us a message online, we get their own episode. We felt like that kind of defeats the purpose. purpose, right? Then we also didn't want to do a review show in the traditional sense where we would wrote shows that were bad because I feel like that's a lot of times what they turn into, because it's funny to talk about how bad something is. But we always wanted to go into the other side of that where every show that we brought to the podcast would be a show that whoever brought it really liked. And so it's more highlighting things we liked not trying to beat down on things that were not as not as in our wheelhouse. And so a lot of times, we just try and we would try and mix it up. Like I feel like each one of us kind of had our own category we constantly do. So when Josh was on show, there's a lot of tech and a lot of kind of understanding how data works and things like that Kirk loves narratives. He He also realizes that narratives are sometimes hard to talk about on the show, right? So he mixes it up, and I would do a lot of music and movies and things like that. But then we got the idea. The first time we did this was a couple years ago. Now, where we ask other people, because sometimes it's better to get out of our own kind of wheelhouse and really mix it up. And the best way to do that is just to talk to other people that we've met through Twitter and everything like that, because like you said, the podcast community is really cool. And it's really fun to communicate with everybody. And you can get really different perspectives that way. So that was part of the reason we want to do this whole thing is so we could just mix it up a little bit.

Vikram Baliga : 28:23

Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. And, and like, oh, and a comment I was gonna make that I had actually written down to make before we got started is I like the tone of your show, because I've heard quite a few podcasts like you mentioned that like, they just they just crap on other podcasts a lot. And it's, it gets kind of frustrating, right? Or just like whatever is recommended. But one thing that struck me even when I first started listening to y'all show is like, even if one of y'all didn't necessarily like the episode or whatever the listen to are always like really kind about it. Right? It wasn't just like, this is crap. It was like, No, I see why you recommend it. There was a Um, I don't remember now what you were reviewing, but

Unknown Speaker : 29:02

Oh, it's actually happened though. No, really? Oh, no, no, no, not that we've been mean to him. But what you're talking about is definitely happened where one of us is like, hmm, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna crap on this. Right?

Vikram Baliga : 29:15

Well, yeah, no, it's because it can be hard to do too. Because if you were like, man, I really did not like this. Yeah, I it was there was one episode I listened to you and I can't remember now what it was. That is either like a paranormal or true,

Unknown Speaker : 29:27

or something. You've already explained. Plenty. Both know exactly what you're talking about. We know exactly who hated it. Because literally, my brother hated every Halloween because me and Kirk were like, Oh, it's Halloween. Let's bring in some spooky episodes. You know, like, oh, we'll talk about and there was one of them. We talked about was it the one that they tried to like, go at it kind of skeptically and try and disprove it as they did it. Maybe so maybe so yeah, there was one that I was like, Okay. If any spooky podcast is going to be okay for Josh. It's this one where they want to be skeptical and They want to they want to go science first. And like first first choices can science explain this? Sure. Still still hated it. But he, he just didn't like the entire genre.

Vikram Baliga : 30:12

But But even in that, like he always conversation was not like negative, he was just like, Nope, not for me not doing it but like he was not mean about just like, you know, okay, I'm not gonna listen to this after today or whatever.

Unknown Speaker : 30:26

But I think there's some element of everybody has different personality types and different things are looking for entertainment, you know, that's one of the things that like, it's really easy to even with TV shows, you see something that you don't relate to, and it's easy to talk trash about where you can realize that that's not for you, but maybe it wasn't supposed to be or maybe it's fine that it's for someone else. It's it's more about finding that thing that connects with you, and being passionate about it not dumping on anybody else's passions.

Unknown Speaker : 30:52

And it also helps that we've been on this side of the microphone

Unknown Speaker : 30:57

and we know that we would have been roasted And probably still deserve to be roasted. Compared to a lot of people.

Unknown Speaker : 31:04

Oh, yeah, sure.

Vikram Baliga : 31:06

So it's okay not to put you on the spot and you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, like, you know, single anything out. Is there a favorite discovery that the two of y'all have made? I know there's been a lot so it's just

Unknown Speaker : 31:18

Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's I mean, we've we've talked about and it's, it's hardly a discovery on some, but there's a couple that we listen to. Anytime we listen to them. We'll do it any anytime. So like ologies is a great show. We anytime I will listen to ologies I can't remember. I think there was Josh brought ologies Song exploder basically anything that NPR does all incredible. Honestly, like, it's it's really fun to just try new stuff, too, you know, because we it's crazy because we listen to so much podcasts, that it's almost it's like you said it's kind of hard to keep up with all your subscriptions. So it's kind of like you'd have to lean into exploring, you know, here In here in new stuff and kind of just going on journey. What do you think, Kirk? What are some of your favorites? So

Unknown Speaker : 32:06

I think at our I'd already listened to snap judgment, but if Yeah, I think I already listened that that would definitely have been one of the ones for sure. But Reply All I know it's not a little podcast, it's not an indie pod, right? That show it. I love it so much. And then another one is my brother, my brother and me, which is absurd, but they are the funniest guys. And we've seen them live twice now. And they're just so funny. everything they do is hilarious. So I didn't listen to either those shows until doing our show and discovering them through that. So those are probably my two main ones.

Unknown Speaker : 32:47

You know what the one of my favorite discoveries recently and it's a little bit of a spoiler for about 35 minutes from now is a petri dish podcast is hilarious, like, Yes, I really loved the book. It was kind of looked at, you're like, yeah, I kind of wanna subscribe to that. Like, yeah, I just want to I just want to hear that when it comes out, but we'll talk more about that later. But yeah, no, I was like, it really was one of my favorite discoveries we've had recently.

Unknown Speaker : 33:12

mm 100%.

Vikram Baliga : 33:13

And, and I tell you what, and you know, again, no spoilers. This is this is coming out in a couple, you know, a few weeks for me, but you know, for the people listening, talking about the podcast community, Shaun Allen, who's one of the hosts of petri dish, and his brother Nathan and Sean is one of the most supportive guys on like podcasts, Twitter, like if you can, if you follow their their account, the petri dish account, he is like constantly tagging people shows like, oh, here's he's got like, this big list that he puts out. So when somebody asks for podcasts, he's always like, Oh, yeah, here's 10 of them that I love that would fit maybe what you like and so he's always shouting people out. He's always so he's a good dude. On top of being, you know, a great scientist and a fantastic podcaster. Yeah, hilarious.

Unknown Speaker : 33:58

Really fun. Truly, truly. spod cast

Vikram Baliga : 34:02

well that's that's good to hear that my my recommendation didn't fall fall flat.

Unknown Speaker : 34:06

Um, oh yeah, definitely not.

Vikram Baliga : 34:09

Okay, so let's, I was gonna say speaking of petri dishes, that's not an excellent segue, but we're gonna go with it. Speaking of petri dishes, okay. Give me a crash course on algae. If I had never heard of algae, what are the most important things I should know about it? Because I think people think they know what algae is and really have absolutely no idea.

Unknown Speaker : 34:33

Yeah, aren't you take this

Unknown Speaker : 34:34

Okay, thank you for that.

Unknown Speaker : 34:37

Okay, sure. Yeah, I'll take this one okay. So in, in general, it is a microscopic plant. It is a like a single cell plant. And they can range from something that just makes the water look green. To like the seaweed you see in the ocean is a is a just a different variety. There are so many varieties Have algae that literally it makes the entirety of all the other life that we see on this planet look like just a single branch while the rest is a tree, essentially, and we've learned all this through amazing courses that we took when they first had Coronavirus locked down in the in the US. Mm hmm. So we took a course just on algae. So I'm gonna try and try and put my student head on and really funnel some of that.

Unknown Speaker : 35:27

We both took the class and I forget things immediately. At least remember some things you didn't

Vikram Baliga : 35:32

know there'll be a follow up exam on this podcast.

Unknown Speaker : 35:37

But But yeah, it's basically when you look at it, algae and even the earlier stages that turned into what we see now is like kind of more prevalent algae. The first microscopic organisms that could take carbon dioxide and create oxygen are essentially the reason for life on Earth. They have created approximately 50% of the oxygen that's available in our atmosphere. And so literally everything that has happened is due to this little thing that you kind of just ignore in a pond that makes it look green, you know. And so it's kind of wild when you start digging into just how complex they are, to see the wide variety and to see the wide variety of applications forum to see the historical usage for it. And to also see just how important it is to basically, life in general.

Vikram Baliga : 36:30

Algae is pretty amazing. No, it really is. And there's a meme that I don't know if y'all are in this wild Green means Facebook group, if you're not, you should love it. So it's pretty much just like ecology means which is sounds like you would be like okay, there's there's a quarter million members in this group. There's 250,000 members. Oh, nice. So there's an algae meme that pops up every now and then and it's like the first panel is like people talking about oh, we need to save the trees because they produce all the oxygen and then the bottom panel. Like a pond, a green pond and it just a sad algae noises? Yeah, because are so important to our ecosystem. What's the name of the group again, a wild Green means for ecological fiends? Well, it's great. And I actually saw I interviewed those guys, it was Episode 18 or 19. And it was the creator of the group and one of the admins and there they are all about ecology and you know, taking care of the environment, all that and they kind of found a way to do it started out just as a goofy name group, but it's grown into really they haven't nonprofit they've started where they do ecological restoration, all kinds of stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 37:41

Well, that's awesome. Really cool.

Vikram Baliga : 37:43

So that's another thing I could recommend you that you check out, but um, so as far as like what y'all do in like with true algae, so you were taking as I understand, I was looking on your website earlier and kind of trying to be prepared and I'm not very good at That. But again, you're copia, I say the right cleaning. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

Unknown Speaker : 38:07

Yeah. It's like the first time I've heard it pronounced correctly by somebody who doesn't work.

Vikram Baliga : 38:11

Well and earlier when you said it, I was like, Okay, I need to make a note to pronounce it wrong later. So So how does this work and without, you know, giving away any, any secrets or whatever, what are some of the basics of how your products work?

Unknown Speaker : 38:24

So, long story short, during the production, the reproduction of this algae, it creates a lot of

Unknown Speaker : 38:35

bioactive

Unknown Speaker : 38:37

material metabolites. And so our product technically doesn't have algae in it. It's the metabolic byproduct of the algae,

Vikram Baliga : 38:44

okay, because

Unknown Speaker : 38:47

algae itself will want to keep growing, thus, it wouldn't be shelf stable. It wouldn't be able to be in a container. The container would want to bust just like a lot of biologicals, that are out there. You either have to put your biological in a dormant state or you have to pasteurize it. We just remove it. Because most of the stuff you're trying to get out of anyway is from the cultured water, which is what we're selling to ag is the cultured water of the algae.

Vikram Baliga : 39:14

Okay, that's it. And there's a really great picture on the homepage of your website. Yes. It's you Kirk standing in the middle of these days, like these big green. It's very dramatic. I like it. It's a great picture. But so it's, it looks like you kind of just grow them in these big like, bio tubes or bio containers. And that's, it's really, I mean, just just a little bit that I've read on. It's really fascinating. It sounds like you've had really good results with the product.

Unknown Speaker : 39:42

Yeah, so like I said, we used to be able to make 30 gallons a day. And the most amazing thing about this and it just still blows my mind. And it's amazing is that we bought this algae from university three years ago. And it's the same algae. It's Just it's great, great, great, great, great grandchildren is what it is. Because it just it splits and divides and continues growing. So we just never harvest it completely. We only harvest 50%. And then it just keeps growing and refills overnight. When we're at full production, we can harvest every 24 hours. Wow. Which is amazing. As long as there's sunlight and there's warm weather, and they have NPK. That's all they need. And they'll grow. So yeah, we grow them in those photobioreactors. And now, when we're when our when our current capacity is at full production, we can create a little bit over what is it like 2500

Unknown Speaker : 40:48

gallons a day? Yeah, 2000 a day. Yeah. And it's like you said within 24 hours, you're going again, it's a it's a really cool kind of closed loop system. That's extremely efficient at this point, the only inputs are like he said, just some water and very small amounts of NPK just so the algae can eat it not so that it exists in the final product. Sure. And the only byproduct is literally the biomass. The algae cells themselves is the only runoff from the plant. So it's a it's a pretty cool efficient system that they've kind of gotten perfected here.

Vikram Baliga : 41:26

That's That's awesome. And it sounds like it's probably from a sustainability stamp standpoint. Really great right because you've got I guess self instead of having to synthesize all of these products which a lot of times is a very you know petroleum heavy and just input heavy process. I mean, y'all are you're the algae is doing the work it's it's the it's the the workhorse and the heavy lifter here. That's really cool.

Unknown Speaker : 41:51

Yeah, no, it's it's really awesome. And in the long run, we're hoping to be able to as well sell the biomass, you know, either like chicken feed or something like that, because it's very high protein. I mean, they still close. Close chlorella, I always give them opiate pills.

Unknown Speaker : 42:11

Not yet.

Unknown Speaker : 42:12

They already sell chlorella pills, like on Amazon go on Amazon right now you can buy them or spirulina or whatever, it's very high in protein. And the amazing thing about chickens is they can digest it without having to it being the cell walls being broken. Whereas, you know, we're for humans, we would have to process it a bunch to be able to.

Unknown Speaker : 42:34

Yeah, that was, that was definitely a cool thing that I've learned throughout this whole process is like all those omega three fatty acids are not readily available to us in algae, which is the original source. That's how we get from fish is because fish eat the algae and they can break that down too. But we can't so when you're doing any kind of supplement, you have to literally break the cell wall for three bioavailable if you use just algae itself.

Vikram Baliga : 42:59

That's fascinating. It makes sense though, because like, I guess there's always like a, you know, some kind of ecological pass through some kind of biological pass through that. That's really that's really pretty interesting. Um, so as far as like, you know, and I, I'm even trying to figure out because I'm just so fascinated by this, I'm trying to figure out the right questions to ask, you know, this is something that we do a lot of greenhouse research in different kinds of products and different kinds of, you know, plant plant compounds that are intended to improve fertility, improve overall plant growth and plant vigor. And, you know, this is something that I think is really interesting. And this may be something you've done, or I'm just throwing stuff in my office making noise, which is great for pot. So this is an aside, but I'm terrible at sitting still. I cannot sit still. And so for a podcast, like there's always like squeaky chairs in the background, and I just I've just sold out to it.

Unknown Speaker : 43:51

Yeah, no, I have to force myself to not move in this chair. You have no idea how noisy it is. I have to respect don't

Vikram Baliga : 43:58

Yeah, and it's it's a challenge. That I have not been able to rise to yet. Um, has this been tried in like a hydroponic systems? Or is it mostly field work that you've done so far? You may not be

Unknown Speaker : 44:10

good. No, we can't answer it. We have mainly done it in fields. We are hoping we're actually in discussion right now with both research centers, and, you know, small people that have hydroponics themselves, and we're going to do some trials actually starting now, we actually just gave him product the other day for some small hydroponic trials that would just be anecdotal. But then we're also looking to do some with with the research companies like Pacific ag research, or you know, University.

Vikram Baliga : 44:43

Yeah, well, let's let's talk off camera about that because I have I have some thoughts so maybe we can, we can chat about that a little bit more. Um, no, that's that's just so fascinating. And I think that you know, for for anyone listening that you know, is like, why, why are we talking about algae? Because food production is kind of a big deal. And we talked about a lot on the show how people don't think they care about plants and stuff, like people just don't know. I I think that people just don't know yet that they care about plants and stuff. Because when you really start to drill into the science and the necessity of good research and good product in all of these things, like if people like to eat if people like, you know, we've we're our population is not getting smaller, like we're, we are exploding worldwide as far as population goes. And so any kind of new technologies and new processes and this not that algae is a new process, but you applications of things, is only going to help us going forward to feed you know, 910 billion hungry people.

Unknown Speaker : 45:48

Yeah, absolutely. And it also is it's something that we're trying to test a lot of different angles here because if you start looking into the research available on algae, it almost All is centered around biofuel, which it makes sense because the money being put into the research is from the oil companies and people looking to diversify there. But when you start looking at other applications for algae, which, like you said, have existed for a long time, and we're always finding new applications, there is a pretty surprising lack of research on a lot of the different angles here. And so it's a it's a cool opportunity for us to kind of dig in and try to understand these things better and also put third party research in place so that it's not just anecdotal. So like, one of the things that we were trying to test and we're trying to see if this is something that we can work with is a literal decrease in the amount of fertilizer that people have to use. Okay, so if we've seen the problems in Florida, we had crazy red tide, which is just an algal bloom. And, and literally, sometimes not even that's where you start getting real weird on algae because they call cyanobacteria and algae and like, yeah, it's It's kind of healthy, but it's not as well. Yeah. But you have toxic algae blooms. And then you look at why is this happening. And for the most part, it's happening because of warm water. And it's happening because of runoff of excess chemicals used for either traditional farming or even for lawn care and things like that. So if we could find a way to reduce the inputs, reduce the amount of nitrogen that needs to be put out, could we help reduce the amount of red tide occurrences we're seeing or things like that, you know, so it's a fun thing to try to explore what all this can be and to try and put that research in so that we can better understand what we're what we're working with.

Vikram Baliga : 47:38

That's yeah, that's pretty amazing.

Unknown Speaker : 47:40

Pretty amazing. And the main, the main mode of action for our product is it really just explodes your biome around your root system. It just mycorrhiza goes crazy and facilis goes crazy. And all of these microorganisms help the planet Be able, I mean, you understand this probably better than we'll ever understand it, it helps the plant to be able to make those fertilizers natural or, you know, synthetic, more bioavailable to the plant. And so that's where we shine. In fact, I, we did some trials on two different nurseries. And me and Zach are the ones that figured out why one of them worked and one of them didn't, because it was a nursery. So they're using sterile soil, right? One of them was using a biological product as well as our product. One of them was not the one that was using the biological product, we had great results, the routing was so much quicker, such such better results, they had much quicker pinning plants and they were able to step them up quicker. The other nursery, no results at all. And I'm like what's going on and why? And it's because the other nursery was putting no biologicals. So it's like the way I equate it was like we were trying to start a fire but we had nothing. It was just wet. You know, grass, you know, it's not even wood. Yeah, there was nothing there to kickstart. And so that's what our main mode of action is, is to really kick off your biodiversity in the root system. And we did some third party trials this year on strawberries, for fertilizer, and I'm not gonna lie I, I would not have believed that if I didn't see with my own eyes. I went out there. And granted, this is a research center. So these are small plots, you know, they're 100 feet long or something like that. They're pretty small. But there was four different treatments, one with full dose of fertilizer, one with a quarter with our product, basically, all the way down to one quarter of the recommended fertilizer dose. And you could not tell the difference that allow at all and in fact, the ones that even the one that had 25 percent of the fertilizer that's recommended, but had our product with it picked more than the conventional without our product, which blew my mind.

Vikram Baliga : 50:11

That's, that's amazing. And I've done you know, I've done some strawberry work in my past career with the extension service. And like, I can definitely tell people out there listening how much they respond to fertility, right. Like, if you don't fertilize your strawberries correctly, you're I mean, you're shooting yourself in the foot to begin with, right? They, they, they're heavy feeders, and so you need their fertility and Yeah, well, and I'm trying to pin down the right guest for it. But at some point, we are going to do like a full episode on mycorrhizae and some of those soil associations because it's, I mean, that is the basis for everything we do.

Unknown Speaker : 50:44

Yeah, it really is mind blowing. And it's something that I had never at least because everybody I feel like has a general sense that soil is important. Nobody has a sense of how important it is like just hanging on in there. Like it's there's a lot going on. In soil, it ain't just dirt. Well, yes.

Vikram Baliga : 51:04

Yeah, no for sure. Absolutely. Man. That's that's so fascinating. I could I think I could talk about algae for a lot longer than we probably have to keep talking. I'm looking at the time and I can hear Paul choma already saying all right, you're coming up on an hour, man. But uh, so know y'all y'all are saving the world one now good at a time. So if you don't one of the things I do on the show, at the end, is I asked for, like a piece of advice and it can be about like, careers, it can be about plants. It can just be about life in general, whatever y'all think is important. But for each of you if there was one thing that you would like to send the listeners of this episode home with, or you know, out the door of their car with or whatever, what would that be?

Unknown Speaker : 51:55

I didn't prep you for this. I'm sorry. No, I did not know this is okay. First of all, I do this on my show. And I get why do it because you get much more. Yeah, true answers. Okay? Um, I mean, first of all, go grow something yourself, you know, go grow something outside it really is a rewarding feeling. It's pretty it's been pretty crazy going through 2020 it gives you a lot of I don't know, it's there's been a lot to think about constantly a constant bombardment of things to think about. And we've seen I think more people are planning gardens right now than they have since World War Two Victory Gardens like we're seeing we're seeing these things happen and I think there's real value in that I think there's real value in in putting in the work and nurturing something and growing something so that's a that's a great thing and maybe an aside from like, anything that we have going on but just something that through all of the the chaos that is 2020 I'd say just be just be good to each other. treat everyone like like a human being and be kind to each other. Everyone needs it.

Vikram Baliga : 52:57

Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker : 52:58

That's almost exactly Then last eight years yeah, exactly what I was gonna say

Vikram Baliga : 53:02

soccer face when he said he took rivers.

Unknown Speaker : 53:06

We've been going through so much as a people. And we're about to go through an election cycle. And there's, there's so many things that are currently dividing us. But we're all human beings, and we all need love. And we all just need to respect each other and we don't have to agree. That's something that I mean Zack and Josh, we used to have, you know, two hours of recording maybe just an hour, but we would spend seven hours together and most of it was debating. We respectfully disagreed about things all the time. Yeah. And I feel like that's lost. People can't respectfully disagree about things anymore. And so I think that it's fundamentally important that we get back to being able to respect each other's opinions, whether we think they're right or not, but just respect the person as a person. And, and to value each other. It's just I don't know, I think that that's very important, especially right now.

Vikram Baliga : 54:06

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the only way we ever learned anything. And that's the only way that we'll ever I think progress continue to progress as a society is if we, you know, what has made us great in the past is that we were able to work through these issues, right and, and rely on each other's viewpoints sometimes and come up with creative solutions to things and I think that's, that's where we need to get again, for sure. So, guys, this has been really excellent. Like, I really have enjoyed this conversation. And again, I could talk about algae, apparently, for a very long time. Um, but I will kind of wrap up and I may have to we may have to do this again at some point. But um, because I really did enjoy talking to you all. Oh, definitely. game. Oh, no, we're definitely calling you about about our show. So we're gonna have one on the other side. I have to think of a deep thoughtful question to drop on you, right. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 54:58

yeah, just hit me with it. I feel Bad sometimes. But but it gets like, I feel like it gets, like you said, just really true answers right? It's like, I don't know. And then you just say the first thing that comes to mind. Oh, I do the same thing and I feel bad. I know exactly where you're at. I literally asked musicians, what does music mean to you? And it's so general that like, literally, but you get really heartfelt answers from it. You get them to really think about it and be on the spot. And

Vikram Baliga : 55:22

yeah, no kidding. For sure. So, just to wrap up, why don't you tell tell us? Where can Where can we find you plug plug, whatever you want to plug your stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 55:32

Okay, we are at the PDS official on Twitter. If you search the podcast discovery show at this point, where you can pretty much find it, I think, I think that you can find most of our platforms. We have one on Twitch one on YouTube. We have a club that even Vikram Zahn called the podcast discovery club where we just share random discoveries throughout the week and people can talk about it's really fun in there.

Unknown Speaker : 55:58

Anything I'm missing Kirk No, that's it. I mean, we're

Unknown Speaker : 56:01

everywhere. Everywhere. You can find things. We're there. We have a thing there.

Unknown Speaker : 56:06

Yeah. And if Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 56:08

if you like podcasts, definitely follow us on the journey of finding new podcasts and then discussing them with us. And we would love to hear your discussions or your your discoveries, I mean, and to discuss them and hear what you like about the shows that you listen to.

Unknown Speaker : 56:25

Yeah, man. I mean, if you're interested in finding out more about the true algae, stuff we talked about is just true. algae.com. We're working on new website, we're going to be publishing a lot of new research a lot of new data as we get it in. And so and also me and Kirk will have another show. That is an ag tech show that we're hopefully going to have vickerman very soon. And so there'll be a lot of crossover stuff happening at the end of this episode.

Vikram Baliga : 56:48

Yeah, that's Yeah, yeah. Well, as soon as we quit recording, we'll talk well, it's almost like you know, you send the kids to bed and they talk about them behind their back.

Unknown Speaker : 56:55

Yeah, that's the listeners, the kids. Alright, kids.

Vikram Baliga : 57:00

I am I'm gonna plead the fifth on this one it's time it's time to go to sleep get your go to sleep go listen to something else Gilson podcast discovery show and we're gonna talk about you behind your backs.

Unknown Speaker : 57:09

Yeah, no, thank you so much, Vikram.

Unknown Speaker : 57:11

We really appreciate it. It was a it was a blast. And next time you want to interview us again, we'll probably know even more about algae.

Unknown Speaker : 57:18

Always learning more every single day.

Vikram Baliga : 57:20

Well, so something and this is a again, I I I'm really bad at ending the show too. Sometimes I just keep talking. But um, something we've started doing we just had our first one recently is deep dives. And so like I'm bringing guests back to really like drill into that the science part of like what they do so we may we may talk algae again sometime. For too long.

Unknown Speaker : 57:40

We're gonna study then we

Vikram Baliga : 57:43

will be another exam. Dang it. I know. So everyone, thanks so much for listening. Y'all are super cool. Thanks for hanging in there and learning about algae and I really another really great podcast you should listen to. Okay, but really, I could talk about algae. For the rest of the day, but then you would have to listen to me talk about algae for the rest of the day, and I don't know how you feel about that. Anyway, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. These guys are super knowledgeable and just really wonderful human. So I hope you'll go check out the podcast discovery show and listen to their very wide selection of shows that they like and that they have reviewed. And I hope you'll also check out all the shows that we mentioned and discuss today. And if you're in need of some biological fertilizer, I hope you'll check out true algae. Thanks so much to the texas tech department of plant and soil science, for all the support and just constant encouragement with this show. Again, I could not do this without y'all. Thanks to all the patrons that donate to help out with expenses and to cover the hosting costs and everything else. If you'd like to support the show, hit up patreon.com slash plant apology and as little as $1 a month will really go a long way to Helping out. Follow us on all of our social media accounts. We are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Search for plan topology, look for the little white tree with the green background. And that'll be it. Join the plan topologies cool plant to people Facebook group and get ready for the next episode, which will be the first of our very first a two part series where I'll be talking timber production, a life in the forest and all kinds of other things with giovane. Until then, y'all keep being safe and keep being cool and we will see you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai