Crab Shells Are Main Ingredient : Firm Hopes Product Ups Wheat (and Profit) Yields

For most people, a pile of crab shells is little more than a pleasant reminder of a delectable meal. But Costa Mesa-based Bentech Laboratories Inc. sees profits in the armor that once protected the feisty crustaceans.

That’s because crab shells are the main ingredient in a new treatment for wheat seeds--a so-called pre-emergent that, Bentech claims, can boost the yield of a wheat crop by as much as 35% and could bring the company as much as $6.5 million in revenues next year.

Dubbed YEA--short for “yield enhancing agent”--the product was approved last month by the Environmental Protection Agency for use as a pre-planting treatment for wheat, said Theodore Bentley, a Bentech founder and its chief financial officer.

YEA’s primary ingredient is chitosan, an organic material commonly found in edible mushrooms, crab and shrimp shells and the like, Bentley said.

Not a new substance by any means, chitosan is used in Japan in sewage treatment plants and was used as an adhesive for airplane wings during World War I, he said.

What is new is using chitosan to boost the yield of wheat crops.

Chitosan is believed to help wheat plants develop stronger stalks that are less susceptible to breaking as the growing season wears on, said Lee Hadwiger, the Washington State University researcher who developed YEA. Tests indicate that YEA may also make wheat more resistant to some diseases, he added.

Field tests at the university on wheat and other cereal grains showed that YEA can boost the wheat yields by as much as 30%. However, in the latest round of tests a more modest 10% increase was the average, Hadwiger said

But even a 10% increase in yield “is really important to wheat production,” said Hadwiger, who first began experimenting with chitosan in 1978 and has been testing YEA in Washington wheat fields since last year.

However, Lee Jackson, a UC Davis professor and grain specialist, said that while he is not familiar with YEA itself, he has “never seen any positive results” when chitosan has been used to boost wheat yields. “There are a lot of materials on the market that make similar claims, but few hold any water,” he said.

Bentley says that despite getting marketing approval for YEA fairly late in the planting season, the compound should bring in $400,000 to $650,000 in revenues this year, enabling the privately held Costa Mesa firm to post net earnings of between $75,000 and $150,000.

Now available only in the Pacific Northwest, YEA should become available in the breadbasket regions of the Midwest next year. Revenues for 1987, Bentley projects, could range from $3 million to as much as $6.5 million. Net earnings, he said, could climb to from $1.5 million to $2 million.

Bentech, which was formed in 1984 by the late D.J. Bentley, who founded and later sold Bentley Laboratories Inc. for $243 million, hopes to eventually win approval to use YEA on other agricultural products, Ted Bentley said.

Although chitosan itself is not protected by any patents, the exact makeup of YEA is a secret, and a patent is pending for its use on wheat and barley.

But Ted Bentley intends to have the business sewn up by the time a competitor could win marketing approval.