Cooling Crops: Passive Thermal Stress Prevention in Perennial Crops & Vines
Opportunity for
Cooling Crops seeks collaborations with leading growers, producer groups, agribusinesses, input distributors, R&D providers and investors interested in scalable, on-orchard climate adaptation solutions for deciduous trees and vines in Australia and New Zealand.
Partners are invited to co-run commercial pilots, validate performance under local conditions, and co-develop market access and distribution pathways for the patented, sprayable canopy-cooling solution.
Opportunity description
Industry challenge
Deciduous orchards and vineyards across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) are increasingly affected by warming winters and more frequent heatwaves, resulting in insufficient chill accumulation, poor dormancy breaking, yield loss and reduced fruit quality. Current reliance on hydrogen cyanamide and similar dormancy breakers only partially offsets lost chill, while raising health, safety, environmental and regulatory concerns. Without viable alternatives, growers can experience yield losses of up to 30%, threatening profitability and resilience in high-value export crops such as apples, kiwifruit, almonds and grapes. As ANZ’s premium horticulture sector expands, scalable climate-adaptation tools are urgently needed to safeguard production and maintain global market competitiveness.
Current opportunity
Cooling Crops is launching structured pilot trials across Australian and New Zealand orchards and vineyards, including apples, kiwifruit, almonds and grapes.
Trials will include side‑by‑side comparisons against current practice (untreated, Hi‑Cane only, and CoolGrowth plus standard programs) and commercial incentives for early adopters.
Early collaborators will gain access to commercial pilot incentives, locally generated performance datasets, and the opportunity to co-shape application protocols, adoption pathways and distribution models tailored to ANZ production systems and regulatory settings.
Enquire now to submit your interest.
Opportunity background
Cooling Crops is an academic spin-off developing CoolGrowth, a patented, sprayable green canopy-cooling powder that can be applied using standard farm sprayers to reduce canopy temperature by 3–6°C without external energy inputs. The technology supports winter chill requirement fulfillment and reduces summer heat stress while restoring the natural microbiome, improving nutrient uptake and promoting plant growth. The company is supported by leading agrifood investors and a multidisciplinary team spanning agriculture, biology, physics and materials science. Through collaboration with ANZ partners, Cooling Crops aims to generate independent validation, de-risk large-scale adoption and co-design go-to-market strategies for regional and global deployment.
Potential other applications
Beyond dormancy management in deciduous orchards, CoolGrowth has potential across a wide range of crops and geographies facing thermal and climate stress. The same canopy‑cooling and microbiome‑supporting mode of action could be adapted for table and wine grapes, berries, citrus, avocados and other perennial crops exposed to sunburn, heatwaves and erratic seasons. There is also scope to explore applications in high‑value annual crops, protected cropping systems and nurseries, where non‑energy‑intensive cooling solutions can substitute shade structures and active cooling.
As regulations tighten around hydrogen cyanamide and similar inputs, CoolGrowth could support integrated crop management programs that reduce chemical load while sustaining yield and fruit quality, opening routes into organic and low‑residue market segments. Longer term, the platform technology may be tuned for soil‑surface or infrastructure cooling, contributing to broader climate adaptation and land‑degradation mitigation strategies.