Elytron
case study
Natural biopesticides
Pre-Seed
Buenos Aires, Argentina

What's the Problem?

Every year 40% of crop production is lost due to pests, resulting in an impact of US$ 220 billion on the global economy. The growing demand for healthy food and sustainable crop production requires a significant reduction of chemical pesticides. On the other hand, there are increasing restrictions on chemical residue levels in crops and in by-products by global markets as well as regulatory agencies. Although today this is particularly true for intensive crops, the trend extends to row crops as well. In turn, today chemical products face serious resistance problems from pests, which turns into higher costs and fewer pest control tools for the grower. An alternative to chemical pesticides are biopesticides. These are friendly to the environment and to human health, they are ideal tools for resistance management and, aside of these benefits, their production has a significantly lower carbon footprint than chemical pesticides. However, this type of products is not adopted by growers. This is due to the fact that there is a tradition for using chemical pesticides, and because biopesticides sometimes do not reach the desired parameters of efficacy and consistency.

Elytron
Elytron
Elytron
Elytron

How are they Solving it?

To address this problem, Elytron has created a bioinformatic based platform in line with three key axes: 1) a deep knowledge of the pest/crop interaction, 2) understanding the biopesticide mode of action, that is, identifying the molecules and genes associated with the mechanism by which microorganisms have pesticidal action and 3) Elytron’s own database of microbial genomics that allows the finding of novel modes of action for pest control. Elytron platform solves the problems of efficacy, consistency, and long term action for biopesticides. In addition, it allows the company to enhance product performance by combining different modes of action in a single product.

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