Darryl Lyons grew up with a piece of knowledge his people, the Maiawali of central west Queensland, have carried for more than ten thousand years: country grows differently after the lightning season. With cofounder Mic Black he turned that knowledge into a machine. Their Cairns company Rainstick passes seeds through a gentle variable electric field that mimics what a storm does to the ground and the air, and the seeds respond as if the lightning has already been: germinating more strongly and growing away faster, with no chemical treatment of any kind. The idea won early backing from CSIRO's innovation program and has been trialled with growers, scientists and agronomists across the country.
This year the invention leaves the lab in earnest: Rainstick is scaling up to treat about five hundred kilograms of seed a week by the middle of the year, with about 6.6 million dollars raised to get there, and a plan to reach a tonne a day within three years. We love it for the same reason we love its Perth cousin ULUU: it takes something the natural world has always done and simply learns from it, respectfully. One company grows materials from the sea, the other wakes food from the soil with borrowed lightning, and both were built here.
Our short take: reported by SmartCompany and the North Queensland Register, with program history from CSIRO. Names: Darryl Lyons, cofounder, a Maiawali man; Mic Black, cofounder.