‘Time to take biosolutions seriously’

Integrating biosolutions into conventional agronomy programmes can have a major effect on crop performance, suggest the latest trials.

Enzymes, microorganisms, bacterial cultures and other biological tools can offer the same control as moderate fungicide approaches. But integrating them into reduced programmes can be as effective as full strength conventional treatments.

“It’s time to take biosolutions seriously,” says Agrii technical manager Jodie Littleford.

“For a start, there are fewer new active ingredients coming to market and all are facing tougher regulatory hurdles.

“Then there’s the fact that across the food supply chain, pressure is growing for greater sustainability and lower carbon footprints of production, with reductions in synthetic inputs seen as a key element of this.

“But we know biological solutions don’t perform in the same way as traditional chemistry, so it’s critical we understand how we can best target their use and support them appropriately in integrated strategies.”

Programmed approaches

Agrii’s approach is to focus on a wide range of biological products to validate their benefit in the first instance before they are then looked at as part of programmed approaches, says Ms Littleford.

“We can then stack these benefits in a variety of ways so we can evaluate different strategies to realise their full potential with regard to plant health, resilience, disease suppression, yield, and ultimately, gross margins.

“Weather conditions over the last two seasons have highlighted just how difficult future disease control might be, but they have also provided vital insights into the promise biosolutions hold.

“With changing climatic conditions, there’s an even greater need to focus on crop resilience and stress mitigation and evaluate where biosolutions can contribute to these.”

In challenging conditions and high disease pressure situations, some approaches in particular have stood out from the others, she says.

“Products related to building crop resilience, like elicitors boosting the plants’ hyper sensitive response, have shown particularly positive results, especially when used alongside the right supportive elements.

“Generally, these products work best when they are applied ahead of disease, like a flu vaccine administered before the illness takes hold. We are essentially giving the plant everything it needs to better prepare and initiate an immune response for when the pathogen does eventually arrive.”

Hence their effectiveness does largely depend on when disease starts cycling in the crop, she points out.

“This isn’t necessarily a new concept when we think about current practices around protective applications of fungicides to get the best efficacy. Even now, if you’re in a situation where you’re having to firefight, then you’re far too late.

“We’ve also seen encouraging trends resulting from the use of amino acids. These building blocks are utilised across a number of biochemical functions including protein synthesis, stress reduction and modulating stomatal opening.

“Biostimulation of these processes can enhance growth, nutrient cycling, help crops combat disease and improve productivity.”

Strong responses

Growth promoting compounds like PGA (pyroglutamic acid) and phosphite have also impressed.

“These enhance nutrient utilisation and efficiency, which improves rooting as well as upregulating photosynthesis which in turn provides the plant with more energy and resources to thrive.”

The Agrii trials to date have adopted three approaches when it comes to biological products: a full biological approach, a 50% reduction in synthetic inputs and then a fully integrated approach supported with a good fungicide programme.

“These have then all been tested alongside more traditional approaches using different levels of fungicide input, with a range of very encouraging responses seen.

“Where we use biosolutions earlier on in the programme and before disease levels escalate, for example, we see a sustained reduction in septoria levels right through the season, even compared to full four spray fungicide programmes.

“In terms of yield and margin, all three approaches have generally been equivalent, if not better, than our standard fungicide programmes which indicates just how much biosolutions can contribute to crop performance success.”

While all the trials to date have been field-based, new developments at Agrii’s Throws Farm in Essex, will allow the mode of action and integration of biosolutions to be looked at in much more detail, says Ms Littleford.

“The construction of a large environment-controlled glasshouse will allow us to remove much of the ‘noise’, such as weather, variable growing conditions and pests, from future trials. That is simply impossible to do in the field.

“This means we can focus specifically on what the biosolutions are actually doing and manage things like spray timings and crop nutrition much better.”