16AGRITECHCAT5: A Novel Biopesticide Formulation Technology for Major Lepidopteran Crop Pests
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Greenwich
Department Name: Natural Resources Institute, FES
Abstract
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Technical Summary
Increasing environmental concerns and the legislation that arises from these is currently seriously restricting the use of chemical pesticides in Europe and globally, thus creating an urgent need for safe new, effective, but environmentally-acceptable, alternatives for agricultural producers. One promising alternative approach for protecting crops against insect pests is the use of biological control agents or biopesticides, including products based on the natural infectious diseases of insects. These are environmentally-friendly because they are affect only target pests and are safe to humans, livestock and beneficial insects such as pollinators. However, existing formulations of biopesticides have a number of significant shortcomings. Specifically the shorter shelf life of biopesticides than conventional pesticides and most importantly shorter persistence once applied to crops. The shorter crop persistence is mainly a result of the shorter UV stability of biopesticides. These constraints severely limit current usefulness of otherwise highly pathogenic insect disease agents which mean that they are not as commonly used as most chemical pesticides. This project aims to develop an innovative approach to improve the shelf-life, field-persistence, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of viral biopesticides against the moth caterpillars that damage crops. It will build on tried-and-tested Entostat technology to better protect the biopesticide whilst in storage or on the crop, whilst improving its capacity to kill pest insects. Proof of concept work has already shown that Entostat encapsulation does not interfere with virus infectivity and are thus compatible with these biopesticides. In addition, the project will determine if co-formulating specific UV-blockers with the Entostat waxes, so that they are bound around active particles, will improve the biopesticides UV stability, substantially extending persistence in the field and increasing intervals between applications.
Planned Impact
In order to cope with a rising human population, we must enhance global food security and reduce food crop losses. Thus, this proposal aims to address a key issue currently facing primary crop production in the UK, Europe and globally - the need for new effective, safe and sustainable pest control.
In the UK and Europe, environmental concern about the use of chemical pesticides is driving a serious reduction in the number of pest control active ingredients. As a result, the agricultural sector is faced with a real challenge of how to maintain and increase food production with a vastly reduced arsenal of crop protection agents. In the last 20 years, for example, the number of chemical active ingredients allowed in crop protection fell from 1000 to 330, and this is likely to continue, as illustrated by the recent EU neonicotinoid moratorium.
This project seeks to develop novel environmentally-acceptable crop protection products that can replace the lost chemical insecticides and enhance UK and European competitiveness. The biological pesticide formulation proposed here will boost biological pest control, an already rapidly expanding sector of the crop protection market, better enabling biological crop protection products to replace the many de-registered chemicals. Biological pesticides, derived from natural pathogens of insect crop pests, are a publically acceptable group of technologies that could replace chemical pesticides. These are much cheaper to develop than either new chemicals or GM plants, and there has been a rapid growth in the market in the last decade. These biological agents are very specific pathogens of insect pest species, and major meta-studies commissioned by the EU and OECD have identified no adverse environmental issues with groups such as the insect baculoviruses, which we focus on here, and have approved their use in crop protection. However issues of the limited shelf life of current formulations and the short persistence times of the active ingredients once applied to crops restrict their cost effectiveness and discourage wider use by growers even if suitable alternative products to chemical pesticides exist.
The main goal of our study is to develop novel technology to make these biopesticides work better and to be more cost-effective, so promoting their greater use in improving crop protection and food security. By combining the biopesticide active ingredients (baculoviruses) with Entostat waxes, we aim to enhance field efficacy and increase persistence over existing formulations, so reducing the cost of using biopesticides and increasing their attractiveness to users, so making them a more viable replacement for disappearing chemical pesticides. This proof of concept project, by determining that insect viruses can be effectively encapsulated with Entostat waxes and co-formulated with other chemicals such as UV blockers, opens a whole new avenue of research on biopesticide product development that could be applied to improving the acceptability and cost-effectiveness of a wide range of biopesticides both currently used and under development.
Thus, the project has potential impact in: (i) reducing the chemical burden on the landscape, by replacing chemical pesticides with safer biological ones, so protecting ecosystem service provision; (ii) improving the cost-effectiveness of existing biological pesticides, so making crop protection more efficient in terms of labour and other inputs; (iii) through the replacement of banned chemical pesticides with biological agents, it will safeguard a range of agricultural crop systems currently struggling to survive increased pest threats; (iv) enhancing the UK economy by producing a commercial product that, if successful, is likely to generate significant income via licensing agreements and other commercial routes; and (v) expanding the UK commercial pesticide formulation sector into new product ranges.
In the UK and Europe, environmental concern about the use of chemical pesticides is driving a serious reduction in the number of pest control active ingredients. As a result, the agricultural sector is faced with a real challenge of how to maintain and increase food production with a vastly reduced arsenal of crop protection agents. In the last 20 years, for example, the number of chemical active ingredients allowed in crop protection fell from 1000 to 330, and this is likely to continue, as illustrated by the recent EU neonicotinoid moratorium.
This project seeks to develop novel environmentally-acceptable crop protection products that can replace the lost chemical insecticides and enhance UK and European competitiveness. The biological pesticide formulation proposed here will boost biological pest control, an already rapidly expanding sector of the crop protection market, better enabling biological crop protection products to replace the many de-registered chemicals. Biological pesticides, derived from natural pathogens of insect crop pests, are a publically acceptable group of technologies that could replace chemical pesticides. These are much cheaper to develop than either new chemicals or GM plants, and there has been a rapid growth in the market in the last decade. These biological agents are very specific pathogens of insect pest species, and major meta-studies commissioned by the EU and OECD have identified no adverse environmental issues with groups such as the insect baculoviruses, which we focus on here, and have approved their use in crop protection. However issues of the limited shelf life of current formulations and the short persistence times of the active ingredients once applied to crops restrict their cost effectiveness and discourage wider use by growers even if suitable alternative products to chemical pesticides exist.
The main goal of our study is to develop novel technology to make these biopesticides work better and to be more cost-effective, so promoting their greater use in improving crop protection and food security. By combining the biopesticide active ingredients (baculoviruses) with Entostat waxes, we aim to enhance field efficacy and increase persistence over existing formulations, so reducing the cost of using biopesticides and increasing their attractiveness to users, so making them a more viable replacement for disappearing chemical pesticides. This proof of concept project, by determining that insect viruses can be effectively encapsulated with Entostat waxes and co-formulated with other chemicals such as UV blockers, opens a whole new avenue of research on biopesticide product development that could be applied to improving the acceptability and cost-effectiveness of a wide range of biopesticides both currently used and under development.
Thus, the project has potential impact in: (i) reducing the chemical burden on the landscape, by replacing chemical pesticides with safer biological ones, so protecting ecosystem service provision; (ii) improving the cost-effectiveness of existing biological pesticides, so making crop protection more efficient in terms of labour and other inputs; (iii) through the replacement of banned chemical pesticides with biological agents, it will safeguard a range of agricultural crop systems currently struggling to survive increased pest threats; (iv) enhancing the UK economy by producing a commercial product that, if successful, is likely to generate significant income via licensing agreements and other commercial routes; and (v) expanding the UK commercial pesticide formulation sector into new product ranges.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| David Grzywacz (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Wilson K
(2020)
A novel formulation technology for baculoviruses protects biopesticide from degradation by ultraviolet radiation.
in Scientific reports
| Description | This project has developed the first ever effective UV stable formulation for biological insecticides that use insect viruses or bacteria as their active agent. The short stability of these environmentally friendly biopesticides has been an issue since their first commercial appearance in the 1980s and has constrained their use as a replacement for environmentally damaging chemical pesticides. The new Entostat-BV formulation typically increases the field persistence of biological insecticides from 3-5 days in tropical sunlight to greater than 30 days. This make the biological pesticides comparable to chemical pesticides so much more attractive to users as they need to be applied less often and thus at lower cost. Also as they need to be applied much less frequently they are easier to use as they do not need to be so precisely targeted to the exact period when pests appear in the crop. This technology is now with the biopesticide subsidiary of a major international agrotechnology company who are testing one of their biopesticide products, used in the EU and globally, with the new Entostat-BV formulation for evaluation. This process started in late 2018 and field trials will be underway in 2019. This technology in increasing the attractiveness of biological insecticides is expected to result in a major expansion in their use and meet the need to replace older chemical pesticides that have been withdrawn from the EU and internationally due to safety concerns. It could be comparable to the invention of photostable pyrethroids insecticides by Dr Michael Elliot at Rothamsted in the 1960s that transformed a niche product pyrethrum into a billion dollar a year industry (https://bbsrc.ukri.org/documents/pyrethroid-timeline-pdf/) |
| Exploitation Route | It is planned that the developed technology would be licensed by the industrial partner Exosect to existing biopesticide producers who already make baculovirus insecticides. We have an agreement with one commercial biopesticide producers in EU to access and evaluate the novel technology as a step to adopting and licensing the technology. Others are under discussion. Details of this are in the web announcement https://www.exosect.com/news/news-detail.aspx?id=118 The IP of Exosect has been purchased by the North American Company Terramera for commercialisation. University of Greenwich and University of Lancaster are in discussion to licence their project IP to Terramera |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| URL | https://www.exosect.com/news/news-detail.aspx?id=118 |
| Description | The invention and patenting of a novel formulation for biopesticides that is UV stable is potentially a game changing technology for biological pesticides that use insect pathogens e.g., viruses, bacteria etc.as active agents. While commercial biopesticides have existed since 1970s and their use has expanded recently, to replace banned chemical pesticides, their adoption by farmers has still been limited to specific sectors e.g., high value horticulture. This has been primarily because they suffer the drawbacks of low environmental persistence and high cost. Because the agents are UV sensitive and degrade rapidly in sunlight, typical half lives are 2-4 days, they need to be applied at high rates, increasing cost above that of chemical alternatives and more frequently - often every 5-7 days. The novel formulation invented by this project gives extended UV stability - trials show persistence of 80% after 16 days on plants as opposed to only 50% after 3 days. Thus, it needs to be applied much less often making use more economic. It is also predicted that because of its extended efficacy lower application rates will be feasible, significantly lowering costs of biopesticides to be comparable or lower than chemical pesticides. Previous attempts to improve UV stability of biopesticides were not commercially viable being of very limited efficacy and high cost due to needing large amounts ( >20Kg per ha) of specific & often costly UV blocker. This novel formulation by intimately binding UV blockers into a stable coating needs only very small amounts of expensive UV blockers (> 20g per ha) so the new formulation is much more cost effective. The formulation chemistry works as an insecticide because while it has storage and field stability it is specifically designed to breakdown in the specific environment of the insect gut releasing the formulated pathogen to infect and kill the insect host. It is known this technology can be used to formulate specific groups of biopesticides based on viruses and bacteria, but it is probable that it could be used to formulate other classes of biopesticides and biologically active molecules where conferring enhanced UV stability is of value in crop protection or other biotechnology applications. The original project partner went into receivership in late 2018, but its IP was acquired by a global Agritech company Terramera in 2019, based in Canada. The University of Greenwich (UoG) and Lancaster University, project partner, are in joint extended negotiations with Terramera to set up licensing of the UoG and LU IP to allow Terramera to license the technology to interested Agritech companies. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Title | Organic particles containing viral bodies |
| Description | Composite particles comprising at least one baculovirus particle and an enveloping coating of at least one wax that is degradable/soluble in the gut of a larva of an arthropod. Optionally the particle also includes an insecticide, e.g. a pyrethroid and/or an organophosphate. The baculovirus is either an alphabaculovirus and a betabaculovirus particle and may be in the form of a baculovirus occlusion body. The virus may be partially or completed coated by the wax which should be ingestible by the larvae. The wax is a natural wax selected from carnauba wax, rice bran wax and candelilla wax or a mixture of two or more thereof. The arthropod species is from the Lepidoptera order. Also claimed is a method of producing the particles, use of the particles to control larval infestation in crops either in the field or harvested or processed crop produce, a crop plant coated with the composition, a liquid formulation comprising the composite particles for controlling arthropod infestation on eukaryotic tissue of plants, a dry powder composition for the same use and a method of controlling arthropod infestation. The example uses nucleopolyhedrovirus (SpliNPV) targeting Spodoptera littoralis (Egyptian cotton leaf worm). |
| IP Reference | GB2541175 |
| Protection | Patent granted |
| Year Protection Granted | 2017 |
| Licensed | Commercial In Confidence |
| Impact | Technology has been transferred to a european biopesticide manufacturing company in September 2018 and it now under lab-field evaluation. The IP has in part been purchased by a new North American biotech company (November 2019) Terramera of Canada i who are handling US patent and commercialisation. University of Greenwich are in Negotiations with Terramerra to agree terms for licensing the novel Formulation IP. info@terramera.com |
| Description | A Novel Formulation for Baculoviruses Protects Biopesticide from Degradation by Ultraviolet Radiation - Laboratory and Plant Trials with Spodoptera littoralis Nucleopolyhedrovirus Confirms Greatly Extended UV Stability. A talk at 2021 International Congress on Invertebrate Pathology and Microbial Control & 53rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology 28 June-2 July 2021, A talk by David Grzywacz1* , Kenneth Wilson2*, Igor Curcic3, Freya Scoates3, Karen Harper2, Annabel Ri |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An online talk to an international conference of Biological control Researchers and Industry. Aimed at increasing attention on the outcome of this research project by researchers and biocontrol industry. Comments from audience included "you guys must be proud at having discovered a holy grail of the biological pesticide research, a cheap photostable formulation for biological pesticides" Abstract below A Novel Formulation for Baculoviruses Protects Biopesticide from Degradation by Ultraviolet Radiation - Laboratory and Plant Trials with Spodoptera littoralis Nucleopolyhedrovirus Confirms Greatly Extended UV Stability David Grzywacz1* , Kenneth Wilson2*, Igor Curcic3, Freya Scoates3, Karen Harper2, Annabel Rice2, Nigel Paul2, Aoife Dillon3 * These authors contributed equally Address for correspondence: d.grzywacz@gre.ac.uk Baculoviruses, as biological pest control agents for insect pests, have become an established, though currently small, part of the commercial crop protection industry. A significant constraint to their wider uptake by farmers, especially in tropical systems, is their susceptibility to the ultraviolet (UV: 290 - 400 nm) radiation in sunlight, which limits their persistence and efficacy. Developing baculovirus formulations with improved UV stability is seen by many as a major step to expanding the use of baculovirus products. In this presentation we will describe a novel formulation technology for biopesticides in which the active ingredient (baculovirus) is micro-encapsulated in an ENTOSTAT wax combined with a UV absorbent (titanium dioxide, TiO2). This encapsulation enables only small amounts of a UV protectant to provide strong protection to the baculovirus occlusion bodies and DNA from degradation by sunlight, but dissolves in the alkaline insect gut to release the virus, which then infects and kills the pest. Trials of the new formulation under simulated sunlight conditions in the laboratory showed that the encapsulation greatly extends the persistence of baculovirus beyond that achieved with existing commercial formulations. Further trials on cabbage and tomato plants confirmed that this can extend the efficacy of the biopesticide well beyond the few hours of existing virus formulations to many days, potentially increasing the spray interval and/or reducing the need for high application rates. The novel formulation is relatively cheap to produce, shows no phytotoxicity and has a shelf life comparable with current products. The implications of the ENTOSTAT formulation for lowering the costs and increasing the efficacy of baculovirus insecticides thus expanding the application of baculoviruses to a wider range of pest control situations will be discussed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |