BHUMI is a new spin-off company at the University of Warsaw (UW) that develops environmentally safe agricultural and horticultural preparations that fertilise and regenerate soil and help cleanse it of harmful substances. Its founders are Dr Klaudia Dębiec-Andrzejewska, Dr Kumar Pranaw and Prof Łukasz Drewniak from the UW Biology Department, as well as Anna Głowacka and Tomasz Koms.

Research conducted at the Institute of Microbiology led to the founding of the company. Dr Kumar Pranaw’s team, as part of the TEAM-NET project of the Foundation for Polish Science, worked on the use of elements found in fly ash. Based on these micronutrients, as well as fungi and bacteria, the team developed plant growth-stimulating preparations that can be used in agriculture.

The company currently offers two types of formulations: those based on bacterial and fungal cells, and those based on products of bacterial metabolism. Field tests have shown that they make it possible to reduce the use of synthetic fertilisers by at least 30%.