Progress 09/01/19 to 12/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Becausewe are creating a new farming industry and food catgories with Yaupon Holly "America's Forgoten Medicinal Plant", we are targeting a larger than usual audience. By educating these targeted audience sectors, our stategy is so simultaneously grow awarenes, demand and supply chain. Our targeted groupsencompasses the following: 1. Farmers: we have targeted small to midsize farmers to educate them about our Yaupon growing protocals, processing methods and handling procedures. 2. Timber companies: Typically, yaupon can be found in forest lands in the south which can be harvested contributing to supply chain growth along side the row crop farming of Yaupon. 3. Home gardeners who are interested in growing yaupon as a "home made" tea plant. The American Yauopon Associaton has fielded many inquiries and we have also lectures at the American Holly Association annual meetings. 4. Ingredient companies in the health, wellnessspace including suppliment companies, beverage companies, energy bar companies, cosmetic, who can infuse their products with Yaupon. We have mailed fliers, attended many tradeshows to target this groups. We have advertised to several major ingredient companiesthrough industry publications, trade shows and more. 5. Holistic Skin care & cosmetic companies who can make yaupon based products drawing on its historical use in traditional medicine. We have attended trade shows in this industry to target this audience. 6. Small Tea & coffee houses throiughout the US and internationallywho want to offer a native tea and or Coffee alternative. Expo East, World Tea Trade , SSW, SSE shows have helped us reach this stake holders. 7. Scientific community: Botanists, Chemists, Genetic engineers, Herbalists to study and diseminate the "Yaupon Story". 8. Co- Manufacturers of Herbal & Botanical Ingredients who can suggest Yaupon as a new and innovativeingredient to their customers. 9. Tree nursuries currently growing yaupon who can promote the benifits and the story of yaupon while also offering liners to farmers for planting. 10. Writers,& Journalists who can write the story of Yaupon's resurgence. PBS, NPR, Vogue and many other publications have written stories about us & yaupon. Changes/Problems:The two major areas of change have been the focus on a scalable and efficient yaupon leaf harvesting system and a model for transitioning from a wild harvest to a row crop model supply chain. 1. Yaupon Harvest Machine: we have spent a lot of resources on develping a harvester that can effciently remove the yaupon leaves while maintaing the quality while also reducing the amount of sticks and chaffe that occurwhile harvesting. We have tried to adapt many existing farm harvesters, desigedseveral prototypes, used vacumsystems, water pressure systems, agitating finger systems and many more. Although we have come close to attaining our goal, we still needto devote more money and resources toward this effort. This is a crital challenge, as many of the interested farmers in our outreach program need to be convinved that there is an efficient harvester to harvest yaupon. 2. Wild Crop vs. Row Crop: Many of our interested farmers own forest land where yauon grows wild. Although we promote growingyauon as a row crop, the wild harvest is an important part of the current story and supply chain needs as demand grows. We hope, by, disseminating the chemistry results of our project, this will convince farmers that row cropping yauponis the way of the future for better, healthry and enhanced yaupon that will be more attractive to ingedients buyers.Nutrient dense yaupon will also demand a higher premium in the marketplace with enhanced Caffeine, Theobromine & Theacrine. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We recently established the American Yaupon Association (AYA) in oder to combinethe resources of all Yaupon growers & industry participants- with the goal of creating educational and opportunity siminars at industry trade shows. We attend and give many lectures , events realtated to native plants, health & wellness, trade shows etc to showcase our growing industry and the potential opportunities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The American Yaupon Association has built a website and disseminates our results to communiites of interest. We have visited Seminole tribes in Oklahoma with the intent of reintroducing yaupon to their community as a food crop. We also attended the Soveriegn Nations Symposium as a vehicle for education. We have created a website showing our operations for other Farmersto emulates and contact us. We are utilizing the Georgia Grown Innovation Centerin Metter ,Ga along with Georgia Southern University to disseminate our Yaupon project and results. We met with the Seminoles of Oklahoma to discuss reintergratingyaupon into their daily life and to study yaupon's help in fighting diabetes. We have left literature at many farm supply businesses for outreach. We have farm extension agents with project details. We have produced several film series on our operation to disseminatethroughtout the region on Public TV. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We acomplished all our goals as stated in Phase II. 1. We monitored our treatements for two additional crop cycles, thus aquiring the chemical & agronomic charachteristics over multiple years. 2. We succesfully perfomed metobolic profiling on our test samples and completed human taste testing on many of the yaupon produced crops. 3. We have developed optimal cultural recommendations for growers desiring to grow yaupon as a row crop for food. 4. We have developed Good Agricultural and collection practices for culivating, harvesting and processing yaupon. along with a HAACP plan.

Publications

Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Yaupon is an up and coming plantbased ingredient/commodity.Althought the plant has thousands of years of use and Ethnohistory, it is currenlty experiencing a "rediscovery" after laying dormant for many years. Because we are creating a new industry for yaupon as a farm row crop and a food ingedient, it is necessary to outreach to all segments of the healthy, wellness, food & beverage industry stake holders. Here is a list of indusry segments we have targeted and begun an outreach to: 1. Farmers: we have targeted small to midsized famers in the southeastern regionof the US. We are prerapring a manual and films to educate potential farmers on how to grow, harvest, process and handle yaupon. 2. Timber Companies: We are reaching out to land managment companies in the maritime forest sector where yaupon grows wild and can be an interim supply chain as the "farmed yaupon" sector grows over time. 3. Home Gardeners: We are reaching hobbiests who garden and would like to grow yaupon tea for consumption as a DIY herbal tea. 4. Ingredient Companies: In order to grow awareness and demand for yaupon to necessitate a farm based supply chain, we are reaching out to ingredient compnaies who are on the front lines of presenting innovative ingredients to the food, beverage, suppliment and skin care industry. By attenting trade shows, we are meeting more and more companies interested in Yaupon. 5. Holistic Skin Care & Cosmetic Companies: Becauseyaupon was used as skin care historically, we believe this sector can be a major driver of demand and awareness for Yaupon. Attending trade shows and doing podcasts are effective ways to reach this sector. 6. Tea & Coffee Houses:We are making big inroads in reaching the small to medium tea houses & coffee houses arounf the country. Thru a digital strategy, World Tea Expo, other trade shows, we are getting more and more inquiries in this sector. 7. Scientific Community: we are reaching out to botanists, chemists, genetic engineers, herbalists and their associations in order to disemminate the "Yaupon Story" ,its benefits, history and usage. 8. Co Manufacturers:of Herbal & Botanical ingredients who can suggest Yaupon to their customers looking for new, innovative healthy products that have an ancient history of use. 9. Tree nurseries: Propagators of plants can help educate consumers about the food aspect of this native, hardy landscaping plant. 10. Writers & Journalists: we are outreaching to TV, Radio, Digital and print journaits to help tell the yaupon story. We have already been in numerous nationwide publications and platforms with more to come. Changes/Problems:One of the major changes for our project has been a shift in developing a scalable and effcienet yaupon harvest machine. We now understand that farmers interested in growing yaupon need to have a machine that can effectivley harvest their yaupon leaves. This continuesto be a critical challenge. For thisreason we are intensly trying to develop a solution that will satisfy farmer's concern. We are working with engineering firms to design and fabricate working prototypes for demonstration purposes. We beilve this will be a game chnager in getting farmers to plant yaupon. We are also finding a more inportantrole for wild harvesting yaupon as a transitory supply chain filling the needs as the farmingacreage grows over time. Understanding Yauponin a wild setting has become a more important aspect of our reseach so that we can support the crop enhancements from farming yaupn as a row crop.. Thus , wild collection and testing has been a change in our project tasks. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We intend to disseminate the results in variuos platforms: 1.we are creating an American Yaupon Association to represent all the stake holders in the industry to disseminate info and opportunities in the industry. 2. We have visited the Seminoles of Oklahoma with the intent on helping reintegrate yaupon to their community as a food crop. We also attended the Soveriegn Nations Symposium to discuss opportunities in growing yaupon on tribal lands. 3. We have created a farm based website to promote planting yaupon for farmers. 4. We are utiizing the reach of Georgia Grown Innovation Center in Metter, Ga , alonh with Georgia Southern University to promote yaupon and pubish the results of out project to regional farmers. 5. We have creatingpamplets about yauon todistributethem widely. 6. We are making a film about the project with hopes PBS TV will pick it up. 7. We will distrubte the resutls to southern farm extension agents. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We intendto continue our field work, outreach work, lab work, travel and trade show presentations, with the intensionof accomplishing all our goals by the end of the next reporting period. We intend to further validate our current results with a completed 4 crop cycedata baseso that we can dissmeinate a final product to small and midsize famers looking to farm yauponfor food

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We are continuing to accomplish our goals set out in this project. So far, in this stage: 1. We continue to monitor our treatments over more crop cycles while aquiring the chemical & agronomic characteristics over longer periods of time. 2. We continue to perfom metobolic profiling on our test samples and are starting human taste testing on the various yaupon yields collected. 3. We are developing optimal cultural recommnedartions for growers desring to grow yaupon as a row crop for food. 4. We are developing Good Agricultural and Collection practices. for cultivating, harvesting and processing yaupon. We are also working on a HAACP plan for manufacturers.

Publications

Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:We would like to first mention thatour SBIR Grant was significantly delayed for reasons beyond our control. First, our grant was not funded until late December 2019 , several months late. We were told the USDA Kansas City move, in part, delayed the process. Although we did spend out of pocket expenses, we needed the period funding to properly "kick start" the major tasks of the Grant. Secondly, we were not able to reach an agreement with our University partner regarding patent submission procedures. This forced the PI to interview other research collaborators and scientists. Third, COVID-19 has inpacted out abilty to meet, travel, hire and complete tasks associated with the grant. We have expedited our work and made substantial progress catching up with our timeline. TARGET AUDIENCE: 1. Due to our research, we have on grwoing Yaupon Holly, we have attracted the attentio of the Seminoles of Oklahoma Nation. We have been discussing collaboration on growing yaupon with native growers and have akready sent plants to the Nation. 2. Large beverage manufacturers , suppliment companies, beverage companies, herbal supply companies have all reached out to learn more about the chemistry and growing resiults of our research. 3. Southeastern farmers have also been targeted by our reserach in growing yaupon. They are interested to know the viability of this new crop and are showing intertedt in being part of our community outreach education program.Growers in SC, NC, VA, Ga, Fl, Al , Ms & Tx have all been in contact. 4. Ingredient companies have also been targeted and resoinded favorably to be part of our research commnuity as the data is validated and GRAS status is achieved. 5. Due to our grant activities, Cell tissue propagators have also been targeted and have shown interest in developing propagation protocals for yaupon. 6. By doing farmers markets and educating people on the benefits, phytochemistry of yaupon, independed health food stores and Whole Foods have shown interst in our yaupon products resulting from our farm. 7. Media outlets such as Public TVof NC and others have reached out as they have heard about our SBIR Research. Changes/Problems:We notified NIFA about our delays earlyon and asked for an extention. We were informed that extentions are only considered at the end of the grant period. Therefore, we expect to request several months extention at the end of the grant period in orrder tpo complete the two growing cycles needed to validate our results. We also hired a world class Chemistry Scientist, specializing in yaupon to complete the research strated by Clemson. In fact, this scientistwrote his PHD disertation on yaupon at Texas A&M in early 2000. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?After suffering the aforementined delays, our SBIR (even woth COVID) is currenlty tracking to accomplish all goals set out in the Phase II grant submission. We have completed the infrastructure neceessary to complete the research and have in place our team to accomplish each task.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The following task related accomplishements are in progress: 1.Proper shade houses and irrigations systems have been constructed that will withstand area winds & storms over the two cycle period of the grant. 2. Fertilization protocols are being implemented. 3. first batch of samples are being processed for metabolic profiling, yield analysis and taste profiles. 4. GAP and collection practives are being developed with the help of a consultant. 5. Harvesting & processing equipment prototypesand procedures have begun to be developed. 6. Post harest handling practices are being developed and assembled for eventual dissimination thtough grower outreach professionals and profits.

Publications