001/Bioprospecting·Natural product chemistry·Est. 2026
AridBio is a biological intelligence company. We bioprospect the world's most extreme ecosystems and translate evolution's chemistry into the next generation of herbicides, crop protection, and yield biologicals— for arid margins and the world's most productive farmland alike.
The site is in cultivation
Our research, partner programmes and discovery portfolio come online in spring — across herbicide, crop protection and biostimulant pipelines. Until then, scroll on — or leave a note.
Request access→Scroll
002/The Science
Semi-deserts are unforgiving. Poor soils. Brutal sun. Rainfall measured in millimetres per year. And yet — every spring — they flower. Plants here don't merely survive. They out-engineer survival itself.
Under this kind of pressure, biochemistry becomes extraordinary. Genes express differently. Metabolic pathways twist into shapes that wouldn't evolve anywhere else. Molecules emerge that exist nowhere else on Earth — and the rules they obey are the same rules that govern crops everywhere.
These plants have spent millennia in chemical warfare with each other — releasing compounds to suppress competitors, claim territory, defend roots, repel pests, signal to allies.
We isolate those compounds, characterise their mode of action, and translate them into modern crop inputs — biological herbicides, crop protection, and yield-bearing biologicals — for every farming system, from rainfed margin to irrigated rowcrop.
Years of natural selection
10,000+
Extreme biomes surveyed
07
Candidate molecules in screen
412
and counting
Active programmes
03
herbicide · CP · biostim
003/Source
To a molecular chemist, a chemical paradise looks like a library someone has spent ten millennia curating. We find these places, characterise their chemistry, and translate it — and what evolves in eighty millimetres of rain solves problems twelve thousand kilometres away, in irrigated maize.
Specimen
AB-26-1387
C.P.01
Southern monte ecotone
Subject withheld·Collection embargo
Field note·Arid · 150–200 mm / yr
Allelopathic chemistry refined over evolutionary time to suppress competition within a narrow radius of the root crown.
Specimen
AB-26-1402
C.P.02
Coastal hyperarid margin
Subject withheld·Collection embargo
Field note·Hyper-arid · <10 mm / yr
Water-scarcity metabolism producing an unusual class of triterpenoids and stress-signalling glycosides.
Specimen
AB-26-1418
C.P.03
Highveld karoo
Subject withheld·Collection embargo
Field note·Semi-arid · 200–280 mm / yr
Root-borne coumarin-class compounds with broad antifungal activity — observed defending against soil pathogens for an entire dry season.
Specimen
AB-26-1455
C.P.04
Limestone steppe
Subject withheld·Collection embargo
Field note·Arid · 80–110 mm / yr
Volatile sesquiterpene-class chemistry acting simultaneously as insect repellent and neighbour-plant suppressant.
004/Approach
Crop inputs that respect the chemistry of the field — soil microbiome, beneficial insects, pollinators, watersheds. The molecules we develop have already been pressure-tested by ecosystems more demanding than any laboratory, then validated in modern farming systems from rainfed to high-input.
01
Field expeditions into chemical paradises — semi-deserts, salt flats, alpine margins. Vouchered specimens. GPS-anchored phenology.
02
Metabolomic fingerprinting and bioactivity-guided fractionation. Compounds that survive scrutiny advance; everything else goes back to the herbarium.
03
Formulation chemistry, regulatory science, and field trials with growers — until the molecule earns a place in the row.
Pipeline·2026
Three streams·Evolution-derived chemistry, modern farming systems
P-01
Herbicide
Non-selective knock-down — pre-emergence and between seasons. Biologically derived; tank-mixable.
Stage
Field trials
P-02
Crop protection
Broad-spectrum fungal and insect pressure suppression, modelled on root-zone defence chemistry.
Stage
Greenhouse · pre-field
P-03
Yield biologicals
Stress-signalling actives that lift yield and water-use efficiency in healthy crops, not only stressed ones.
Stage
Lead optimisation
Field trials & partner sites
USA ·Argentina ·Chile ·Brazil ·EU
005/Correspond
Notify me when the work goes public
Or write directly