About TOBY

Dr Toby Parkes is the CEO and Director of Rhizocore Technologies, a company using fungal biodiversity to increase the performance of tree planting operations. Toby holds a PhD in plant microbe interactions and has a passion in understanding how plants communicate and interact with other organisms that they encounter in their environment. During his PhD at the University of Bath, Toby worked on developing an understanding of how plants communicate with microbes where he used this knowledge to develop a new technique for producing disease resistant plants. Toby spent time as a researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working on the Millennium Seed Bank Project to develop cryopreservation and tissue culture techniques for storing and regenerating plant embryos. Since completing his PhD, Toby has been on a mission to translate his academic knowledge into applications that are biodiversity positive and carbon negative which culminated in the launch of Rhizocore Technologies in 2021. Rhizocore Technologies produces locally-adapted mycorrhizal fungi to enhance tree planting success. By working with native fungi, it offers a sustainable solution to accelerate woodland regeneration, improve forest productivity, and increase natural capital benefits.


LinkedIn / Rhizocore Website