MASA International Co., Ltd.

Assistant Professor Yu Tanaka (at the time) of Kyoto University's Graduate School of Agriculture was using a conventional device (made by a US company) to measure photosynthetic rate for his research on breeding soybeans and other crops.

The conventional device was an expensive piece of precision equipment costing about ¥10 million at the time, and the Faculty of Agriculture could only afford one unit. What's more, since measuring a single sample took over 2 minutes, he was concerned that the number of measurements possible in a year would be limited. In the US, some universities and research institutions owned as many as five of the conventional devices.

"At this rate, Japan will keep falling further behind the US in research fields like crop breeding."
"We need a device that's more affordable, faster, and can measure a large number of samples."

Assistant Professor Tanaka then approached our company, given our strength in CO2 concentration measurement technology, to discuss developing a CO2 absorption rate measuring device. This led to a joint development project among three parties: Assistant Professor Yu Tanaka of Kyoto University, Assistant Professor Shunsuke Adachi (at the time) of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and MASA International Co., Ltd.

Through this joint development, we succeeded in combining a high-performance CO2 concentration sensor (patented) with a new measurement theory that more directly detects CO2 absorption by the leaf. This resulted in a new type of photosynthesis measuring device: the "MIC-100."