Why It’s Time for Bioherbicides To Rise and Shine

While biological segments such as biofungicides and biopesticides have flooded the market in recent years, the bioherbicide segment continues to lag behind in development. But there are a few products getting ready to hit the market in the very near future.

This fall, SBM Life Science, a global leader in home and garden care, and Harpe Bioherbicide Solutions, Inc., a pioneer in natural biological herbicides, are planning to bring a new generation of natural weed control solutions to the home and garden, organic, and conventional agricultural markets. The technology is powered by natural plant extracts that provide broad-spectrum weed control of both grasses and broadleaves.

According to Daniel Pepitone, COO at Harpe, the first product in this line-up, an “as-yet unnamed” bioherbicide, relies on natural plant extracts/oils from such sources as spearmint, mint, and lemongrass. These are combined into a contact herbicide that is fully non-selective for use in both pre-emergent and post-burndown applications.

In pre-emergent applications, the Harpe bioherbicide penetrates the seed coat, disrupting germination by severing cellular signaling and halting division. For post-burndown, the product targets the plasma membranes of the plant, causing photosynthesis to stop and starving the plant to death.

“So, it’s very different than synthetic chemistry, where you have sort of a lock-and-key enzymatic mechanism where you’ve added now something to the plant and it’s going to find a binding site and turn something on and off to work,” Pepitone says. “We don’t have that. We’re tackling the entire plant or tissue structure all at once, really causing a lot of disruption in its activities.”

The Technology Angle

With some bioherbicides getting ready to enter the mix, industry watchers say that recent innovations in Smart Tech systems could help such products quickly find their market footing. In fact, according to Accumont Co-Founder and Chairman Stephen Pearce, precision and targeted application technologies utilizing artificial intelligence and drones could be enablers for this segment’s adoption.

“Non-selective bioherbicides like pelargonic acid can be used selectively in crops using precision technologies, saving product and related costs,” he says. “Species-specific bioherbicides could also become economically viable via this approach.”

All in all, Pearce says that bioherbicides should not be viewed as direct, one-for-one replacements for synthetic herbicides, but rather as strategic components within integrated weed management systems.

Looking ahead, other recent advances in such areas as microbial screening, precision fermentation, machine learning, bioinformatics, genomics, and formulation technologies, alongside more supportive regulatory pathways, should gradually improve the prospects for viable, field-ready bioherbicides.

Pepitone also thinks new ag technologies can help bioherbicides gain market acceptance once they are available, for both ag retailers and their grower-customers.

“It’s really fascinating what these new technologies can do,” he says. “The efficiencies that a grower can have and the limited impact on the biodiversity or sprays to soils, being able to move from broadcast to precision. From the cost efficiency standpoint, with the passes over the field and sprays users need to make, some of the newer systems are able to understand the size of those weeds so that the systems can apply a larger dose for a larger weed vs. a smaller one. The efficiency dynamics are just incredible. This helps remove some of the cost barriers.”

For more, continue reading the original article at AgriBusinessGlobal.com.