Stress Management Gains Favor With Growers

While there are a variety of solutions to almost every biological issue that causes crop losses, new research indicates stress management could be the most important contributor to yield optimization, said Chuck Kupatt, president of Crop Microclimate Management (CMM).

“The concept of managing stress in crops is new," Kupatt told Farm Chemicals International, a Meister Media Worldwide publication. “It’s very early on, and the opportunities and benefit to the growers need to be understood.”

Currently, yield losses due to stress are typically 3 or 4 fold when comparing it to other factors, and solutions horticultural and row crops have been few and far between, Kupatt said.

The company’s current G3 technology aims to reduce abiotic stress in row plants by influencing the stress signalizing pathway at an early age using naturally occurring dicarboxylic acids.

Although heat, light and drought are all factors that could potentially trigger stress-related conditions, frost and freeze protection also need to be addressed.

“Growers haven’t had solutions for row crops and reducing stress for those crops,” Kupatt said. “We want to reduce the instance of growers saying their yield has been good or bad because of the weather.”

Kupatt estimates that biopesticides directed at abiotic stress management could produce a 5 to 28 fold return on investment for growers. In addition, he indicates that well-priced and convenient products could incite worldwide adoption.

“A grower in Australia once said to me ‘for the first time we have the ability to reduce the impact of our environment on our cropping,” he said.

CMM has commercialized its SCREEN Duo brand in the U.S. with fruit and vegetable growers in Australia, Mexico and Egypt. Businesses opportunities around the world are becoming robust as countries are beginning to take abiotic stress management into account. Crop Microclimate Management recently entered into a distribution agreement with Certis USA to market CMM’s SCREEN Duo and a licensing agreement for their new G3 technology to better educate growers about new technological advancements in the biopesticide industry.
“We think we can bring a more efficacious and cost effective solution by taking something that’s targeted for stress management and apply it to horticulture and row crops,” he said.

(Source: Stefanie A. Toth, Farm Chemicals International, a Meister Media Worldwide publication).