Biologicals

New EPA-registered “Defense Activator” Targets Nematode Pressure

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 19:29:50 GMT

With EPA approval in hand, PI AgSciences introduces PHC68949, peptide-based novel approach to control plant-parasitic nematodes. Designed with short chains of amino acids, it’s technically a biological crop protection product, but its scientists say it provides next-level nematode suppression.

“It is a defense activator that helps the plant defend against plant-parasitic nematodes. Where a nematicide has activity on the nematode, this product gets the plant ready to defend itself and activates the pathways in the plant–thickening cell walls and roots,” says Wes Hays, North America commercial lead at PI AgSciences.

A biological that handles like a synthetic

Hays says this is an extra tool in the farmer’s toolbox with its new mode of action.

“It’s totally different than most products farmers use today. And its performance is extremely compelling. It’s very similar to most synthetic chemistries in the market for nematodes today–providing the consistency, shelf life and compatibility of a synthetic, but it’s a natural product.”

Approved for use on row crops and specialty crops, Hays says the use rate is low—1 to 2 ounces per acre, subject to state registrations and final product labels.

“There’s flexibility with application—in row crops, you can use it as a seed treatment or a foliar. For example, you can put this into your first post herbicide pass. And for specialties, it’s almost predominantly a foliar application, which opens up flexibility beyond drip irrigation or drench applications.”

Where and when to find this new product

With EPA approval, PI AgSciences is now working on state level label requirements. Limited quantities of the product will be available for 2026, with full commercial launch coming in 2027.

This is the company’s third active ingredient for the agricultural market. For commercialization of its products, PI AgScience partners with distributors in the industry including Wilbur Ellis, Helena and Brandt.

PI AgSciences is the agricultural division of India-based PI Industries, a global life sciences company that custom manufactures active ingredients and intermediates. And the recent product introductions are one result since the August 2024 acquisition of Plant Health Care, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

Valent BioSciences LLC, MGK, and Valent North America Now Unified Under One Sumitomo Subsidiary

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 18:50:00 GMT

A new company will be formed as Sumitomo aligns three of its subsidiaries-- Valent BioSciences LLC, MGK, and Valent North America—under the name Sumitomo Biorational Company.

Sumitomo Biorational Company LLC (SBC) is expected to formally launch in April 2026, be headquartered in Libertyville, Illinois, and by led by Dr. Shinsuke (Shin) Shojima, who has been appointed President and CEO.

The company says its strategy is for SBC to be Sumitomo’s global center of excellence for biorational innovation. It’s expected to accelerate the company’s capabilities in providing integrated, sustainable biorational solutions (from sources such as microbials and botanicals) to its customers.

Company leaders provided these statements in the company’s news release:

“Valent BioSciences has a long and successful history of pioneering biorational technologies. With SBC, we build on that foundation by creating a Global Center of Excellence that accelerates the next wave of sustainable innovation for customers worldwide.” Salman Mir, President and CEO of Valent BioSciences
“MGK has successfully developed and commercialized botanical technologies for more than 120 years. SBC strengthens our ability to bring innovative botanical solutions to market more quickly, meeting the critical needs of our customers and communities.” Steve Gullickson, President and CEO of MGK
“Valent North America is committed to providing consistent, effective services that enable our businesses to focus on what matters most – delivering innovative sustainable solutions to meet our customer’s needs. By combining our collective strengths through SBC, we are creating a Global Center of Excellence that delivers integrated solutions to drive productivity and sustainability for our customers.” Andy Lee, President and CEO of Valent North America.

Notable, Valent U.S.A. LLC will continue to operate separately and maintain its focus on regional sales and marketing.

Momentum and Milestones: NewLeaf Aims to Double Sales Next Year

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 15:27:57 GMT

With more than 10 years of research and four years of commercial availability, NewLeaf Symbiotics is continuing to chart its own course in bringing row crop and specialty solutions via pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs (PPFMs).

Its trajectory includes product placement on just under 1 million acres four years ago to having product on more than 8.5 million acres in 2025. Next year’s goal is to double that.

“We’re focused on the next thing, not just the right now,” says Brent Smith, CEO at NewLeaf Symbiotics. “But the right now feels pretty good”

The company recently opened a new formulation office with a larger footprint, advanced laboratories, and strategic location in St. Louis.

“Our success is because we got good at consistency with a tricky microbe class,” Smith says. “The focus is: formulation, optimization and performance. With that we will continue to be consistent.”

The company chose a novel go-to-market in licensing its technologies to partner companies for product placement and sales. Currently, it has a handful of technologies available via 100 commercially available products. The portfolio includes an EPA-registered bioinsecticide and biostimulants for row crops including corn, soybeans, cotton and peanuts, as well as a vegetative transfer biostimulant. Leaders says there’s more to come with launches for 2026, pending regulatory approval.

“We’ve found traction commercially,” says Aaron Kelley, chief commercial officer. “We have three launches in 2026, an EPA-registered biofungicide, nitrogen use efficiency technology, and a specialty biostimulant for transplant vegetables.”

Kelley credits trust built over time for the product growth. He points to the 70% win rate the company boosts as well as a two-year shelf life for its products.

“Every technology that becomes commercially available from NewLeaf has been field tested with multi-year, multi-location, plots of 10+ acres. We want our partners to have confidence in the products they are recommending to their customers.”

Kelley says biologicals can help farmers thread the needle with integrated pest management and layered crop protection.

“It’s been an interesting development to see how people are seeing biologicals as part of integrated pest management,” he says. “And there’s still more to learn and more yield to gain when our technologies are used along with others.”

Where Can Farmers Expect the Next Level-Up Technology in Biologicals?

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 18:04:49 GMT

With a 70-year track record of use, are crop biologicals poised for a parabolic growth spurt? Or have sales plateaued?

According to Dunham Trimmer analysis, the global biologicals market could reach $19.6 billion by 2027. Shane Thomas of Upstream Ag Insights shares his own analysis that biological sales could equal synthetic crop protection by 2043.

So what is required for those projections to come true?

Pam Marrone, co-founder of Invasive Species Corp. and previous founder of two additional biological businesses, dove deeper into the topic with certified crop advisers during a recent webinar hosted by the Science Societies.

She points to more than a handful of drivers for biological sales growth:

Improved grower ROI
Soil health benefits
Reduction of carbon dioxide
Ramped up scientific developments for efficacy and scale
Biodiversity
Labor safety and flexibility
Lower development costs and time frames (less than $5 million and three years to develop)
No pesticide residues
No resistance

“It’s important to keep in mind, with biologicals, their best use is in integrated programs with conventional crop chemistries,” she says. “More and more growers are seeing that when you incorporate biologicals into programs, you can get a higher return on investment. More than 70% of biologicals are used by conventional growers.”

Biologicals can be divided into three categories:

Biopesticides, biocontrols, bioprotections ($9 billion in global sales)
Biostimulants ($5 billion in global sales)
Biofertilizers/bionutrients ($2.5 billion in global sales)

There are up to 80 new biological active ingredients at the EPA, so what kind of new products — or biological breakthroughs — can farmers expect?

Marrone points to peptides, proteins, pheromones, and RNA interference.

One category she’s optimistic about but with a farther out horizon is bioherbicides, with product introductions expected a few years away.

“Herbicides are a tough one for biologicals. Why are there fewer companies? Why is this harder?” she says. “Well, broad-spectrum herbicides are cheap, even though there’s a lot of weed resistance.”

She points to the need for new modes of action encouraging more work and investment.

Another front she is watching is the predictability and measurability of biological use on soil health.

“It’s going to be important to look at the intersection of crop microbiomes and soil health. Microbes and plants signal each other,” she says. “We know plants recruit microorganisms to their rhizosphere (rootzone) from the pool of microbes available in the soil. So, let’s measure how adding microorganisms to the soil can help reduce time to become regenerative.”

New Chassis For Application: Terrana Biosciences Emerges From Stealth Mode

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 10:40:00 GMT

The saying in real estate is location, location, location. And that applies for technology being unveiling by Terrana Biosciences.

Emerging from stealth mode after four years of development, this Flagship Pioneering company is taking the RNA expertise of cousin company Moderna, and creating crop protection solutions in parallel but distinctly different than cousin company Indigo Ag.

“Terrana is coming out of the Flagship Pioneering ecosystem in Boston, and Flagship has a long history of working on RNA,” Ryan Rapp Terrana Biosciences co-founder and CEO. “Probably the best known RNA company is Moderna, but we have a whole host of other ones within the ecosystem, and it’s helped allow us to have all this knowledge about RNA, but apply it to solve problems in agriculture.”

Rapp says RNA is a natural solution to deliver proteins and RNA molecules that can solve many agronomic issues.

“Plants have natural RNAs inside of them that have been evolving with plants for thousands of years. They’ve been largely ignored, because when people are thinking about RNA in plants, they’re usually trying to find things that are making plants sick,” he says. “What Terrana does is we actually look at all the things that everyone else has not had the time to look at and we begin working with those and what we’ve developed from that is a class of three products: prevent, protect and improve.”

Still in pre-commercial phase, Terrana is working on its portfolio of biological RNA-based products that can work like a chassis to carry and deliver protein building information directly to the plant. Protective effects provided by such technologies include anti-insect, nematicidal, antibacterial, and one key solution Terrana is focused on is antivirals.
“We’re looking at some of the vegetable species where today there are severe problems with viruses in the in glass houses and protected culture, particularly like tomatoes,” Rapp says. “We’re working to create viral products that can deliver resistance to several different viruses that when you get them, you kind of have to destroy the whole crop in the greenhouse.”

(Terrana Biosciences)

While the company’s first development focus is specialty crops, Rapp is eyeing opportunities in row crops as well.

“Think about Asian soybean rust in Brazil. You’ve got farmers that are growing three crops of soybean a year down there and spraying up to 16 times. We believe with the way that our technology works we could potentially reduce that to one spray per cropping cycle. So it’s basically three sprays per year,” he says.

New solutions to previously uncontrolled pests, improved application efficicacy and climate resilience are all benefits Rapp says are possible.

He points to cherry orchards in the Pacific Northwest requiring chill hours–hours below 45 degrees Fahrenheit. And farmers have observed warmer winters, which leads to poor flowering, poor fruit set and poor quality fruit.

“Farmers don’t have good options today—they could cut down the cherry trees, move north to Canada, or replace trees with new genetics,” he says. “Terrana’s product lets us do something completely different. We could go in during the summer, spray those trees with our RNA based product, and actually attenuate or turn down the amount of cold hours that they need so that they can go back to being productive farms that are setting high quality fruit. This keeps those flavor profiles, keeps the cherries that consumers have come to love, and gives the economics back to the farmer.”

Terrana is aiming to have commercially available products in the next few years, pending regulatory approval, that can be applied as sprayables or seed treatments. And the company says its RNA-based biologicals can be stored at ambient temperature and will be formulated as stand alone applications or for tank mixes.

3 Questions Every Farmer Should Ask About Biological Products

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 13:53:31 GMT

Pam Marrone, co-founder of Invasive Species Corporation, and previous founder of two additional biological businesses, shared her key takeaways with certified crop advisers during a recent webinar hosted by the Science Societies.

Marrone says there are three areas to evaluate before farmers make an application of a biological product:

Specific use instructions
Science
Data

Specific Use Instructions
“First, read the label,” she says. “When do I use it? What’s the timing? Is there any effect on soil? Can I tank mix it? Can I mix it with fertilizer? Can I mix with other pesticides? Some of the labels I’ve seen can be very specific, and others give you almost no information. So, that’s important. Read the label.”

In reviewing label information, identify if the product is registered with the EPA (which requires a higher level of requirements) or non-registered. Also, the specificity provided on the label is an indicator about the overall product quality and performance.

“There are products that are bugs in the jug, and they have a consortium of microbes in the jug or bag. If the product has 500 or 800, it should be proven why all those specifies are necessary, and if quality control is being done on all 500 species,” Marrone says.

Marrone has been working toward one national certification of products to eliminate any issues with heavy metals or human pathogens being included in formulations.

“Quality control measures need to be robust,” she says.

Science
Marrone says in order to draw a line between “snake oil” and reputable products, the manufacturer and the retailer should be able to explain the science behind the product.

“It’s no longer good enough to just say ‘we have the best microbes,’” she says.

For best placement and performance, Marrone emphasizes the importance of understanding how the biological works.

Data
Marrone encourages farmers to seek out significant proof of field data.

“Small plots don’t always work with biologicals,” she says. “And when you are looking at field data, know where the trials were conducted and what the consistency was.”

Marrone believes today’s biological industry has progressed to a new performance threshold.

“These days, you really want to see a win rate of at least 80%. So, 80% of the time you’re seeing a yield increase of at least 7% —anything below that is just noise,” she says. “I know companies today getting consistent 10% yield increases. That’s where the bar has been raised to.”

Q&A with CEO in Crop Biologicals: Position and Placement for Success

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:00:00 GMT

Founder and CEO of Vivid Life Sciences Josh Krenz shares how he and the team built a business now marking its 10 year anniversary, and how the industry evolved under their feet as they set a foundation for its success.

What was the catalyst for founding Vivid Life Sciences?
Ten years ago, I looked at where the industry was and I felt like there was a gap and a changing time in the industry where there was opportunity for retailers to have more of their own branded product and control their portfolio when it came to micronutrients, biostimulants, and plant nutrition in general. At the time, margins on crop protection were really collapsing, so retailers were looking for place to build a business and micronutrients, plant growth regulators and biostimulants were not only profitable options but also good agronomic tools for growers.

What is your product portfolio today?
Primarily our business is private label, so we work with large retailers and wholesale distributors, and we take our expertise on how to position and utilize different technologies to create custom solutions for them. It all starts with good agronomics, and we’ve grown with those customers for the last 10 years ever since.

Who do you partner with today?
We work with a broad spectrum of different partners—some of our larger wholesale partners are Growmark and Winfield United, and we have independent retailers as partners as well, such as Finger Lakes Agronomy in New York. Our partners are mostly in row crops, but we also work in potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, and watermelon.

Where are some of the most promising innovations happening in this product space?
Most of our commercial success is in the combination of micronutrients with biostimulants together versus looking at a standalone micronutrient product or a standalone biostimulant product. Where we’ve really helped retailers be successful and helped their growers be successful is when we’ve put together a package solution, and most times that package solution is in their own brand. Everything that we do is mostly liquid; we don’t deal in dry or bulk fertilizer, so smaller package, smaller amounts. Think about pints going across fields, not gallons. We primarily deal with liquid application in smaller packages. Specific to biostimulants, we’ve done a lot of work with seaweed extracts to come up with what ones actually work with the different combinations of micronutrients.
What’s been your biggest surprise with the business?
It may be what hasn’t changed. The grower needs to be serviced with local agronomic expertise and they need local agronomic folks to help them decide what products they’re going to use.The marketplace is really about service. It’s about expertise. You have to be as local as you can and customizing our products has been the evolution of that. Whereas it used to be your custom solution was one SKU that went across 48 states for one retailer. And what we’ve had to learn in the last 10 years is it might be multiple SKUs in the same product category, but it’s going to change based off of regionality, crop deficiency levels, farming type practices, all of those things.

Specific to biostimulants, how has that segment changed in the past decade?
When we were a startup, it was amazing how many startups there were in the in the biostimulant category. And there are very few that I can name that started 10 years ago that exist today. There was a lot of outside venture capital money that was put into agriculture and these start up companies. We were in this unique position as Vivid Life Sciences as we didn’t have one molecule that we had created and trying to market just one biostimulant. So all the single source companies or most of them didn’t make it.

How have you, as a leader of a business, navigated some of the issues that have been experienced with truth in advertising specific to this segment?
That hits key to heart on a lot of the issue here. There were a lot of single molecule companies that got venture dollars and they needed to turn a profit very quickly, so they skipped steps in the process. We’ve learned in the biostimulant it’s not a one year process, it’s a three to four year process for us to understand how a biostimulant works. If you’re going to position biostimulants in this marketplace, you have to understand the other agronomic and specifically nutritional components that are affected. So successful companies in this segment have an agronomic and nutritional core expertise first. Whenever a company has a goal of just adding another application or adding one molecule, that’s not how agriculture and farming works. We may still be a little bit of wild wild west in the biotimulant’s category as a whole, but it is not as bad as it was 10 years ago.

When you aren’t working, how do you spend your time?
Farming has always been at my roots as a fourth-generation farmer myself.Outside of work, I like to get my hands dirty on my own farm and put in a little tractor therapy.When not home, our family likes to spend time showing Highland cattle, Shetland sheep and Welsh cobb ponies.We also sell grass fed beef to our local community and the Twin Cities metro area.

Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks close deal creating a partnership to develop biological products for agriculture

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 23:13:24 GMT

Bayer has announced the company has closed its previously announced transaction with Ginkgo Bioworks to begin a multiyear strategic partnership to accelerate research and development of biological products for agriculture.

The transaction includes the divestment of Bayer’s West Sacramento Biologics Research & Development site, and its internal discovery and lead optimization platform, according to a news release.

With the close of this transaction, the biologics business, which is part of Bayer’s Crop Science Division, will also be able to further engage the open innovation ecosystem and build upon its leading position as a partner of choice for innovators and scientists around the world, according to the release.

Joyn Bio, the joint venture created by Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks in 2017, will be integrated into Ginkgo Bioworks to enable the continued advancement of Joyn Bio’s innovative nitrogen fixation platform, the release said. As part of the agreement, Bayer retains the right to commercialize the technology to complement synthetic fertilizer use in the coming years.

Bayer is now the first major partner of Ginkgo Bioworks’ expanded agricultural biologicals platform, entering into a new collaboration focused on important programs in the areas of crop protection, nitrogen fixation and carbon sequestration to identify next generation biologicals that provide clear benefits to growers, the release said.

“Biological solutions play a critical role in the agricultural innovation ecosystem, and we see tremendous opportunity for these products to add even more value for agriculture in the future,” Robert Reiter, head of R&D at Bayer’s Crop Science Division, said in the release. “The open innovation approach will accelerate the product pipeline and will make sure that we bring high-quality biological solutions and innovative technologies to the market faster.”

Ginkgo Bioworks aims to develop and advance agricultural microbial solutions across crops and geographies through broad, fully-enabled technical platforms that address diverse market needs. Ginkgo Bioworks will work independently with different partners in the discovery of microbial-derived products for agriculture, the release said.

“Ginkgo is committed to harnessing the power of programmable biology to enable sustainable food production and food security worldwide,” said Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks. “We look forward to partnering with Bayer and other innovative companies, and to bringing more applications on to Ginkgo’s expanded agricultural biologicals platform so that growers worldwide can develop breakthrough products.”

Soil-As-A-Service Startup Aims to Reboot Land’s Natural Potential

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 21:36:10 GMT

MyLand is a startup in agriculture with a focus on amplifying the natural microorganisms within soil. Specifically, the company has a system that take soil samples from a farm, extracts native microalgae, reproduces those on-site, and then reintroduces the algae back into the field in mass quantities.

The company has recently completed a 10-week sales push to get one million acres under a letter of intent.

“Our goal is to be the center of gravity for soil health. This is the beginning of a mega trend of a shift to regenerative ag and a focus on soil health,” says Peter Williams, MyLand CEO.

The MyLand system has been in development since 2010, a second generation system was developed in 2014, and in 2018 the company had a commercial grade system.

“We’re very unique in what we do. We aren’t a product. We aren’t equipment. We are service based,” says Dane Hague, co-founder and president of MyLand. “We have a system we can put on any field depending on the dynamic of what someone is growing. And it’s a subscription model–they pay on a monthly basis. We may get three years down the line, and we’ll just swap out the technology if we have something new and better. That’s unique given what we’re doing.”

(Farm Journal)

Its current setup includes a system that is placed on the field for on-site production of the farm’s native microalgae which is then applied through the current irrigation system on the field. The system is operated remotely from Myland’s headquarters.

The leaders say their platform is also unique because it’s not looking for a “super strain” of microalgae to apply, but rather taking the naturally occurring native algae.

“We have created the soil-as-a-service concept. This allows farmers to implement regenerative ag without upfront costs and without an overhaul of their operations. At a very low cost, they can implement this practice at scale,” Williams says.

The past six months have been highlighted with a successful capital fundraising and a minority equity stake taken in the company by Ag Growth International (AGI). As part of its agreement, AGI will collaborate on the installation of several MyLand systems on grain farms in North America.

Next on the company’s horizon will be flagship soil health centers in key geographies–Florida, California and Texas. The leaders say these facilities will be tools to increase interaction with farmers.

“Growers understand we aren’t changing the dynamics of their soil overnight. And that’s part of our conversation with them. Each grower’s circumstances are a bit different. We want to demonstrate we care about their most critical asset—the land,” Hague says.

As a success story, Williams shares an example of a grower in the desert soils of Arizona who increased organic matter from less than 1% to more than 3% over a three-year period.

(Farm Journal)