Monsanto is working on a product it believes could be an effective alternative to the controversial neonicotinoid pesticides.
The company’s BioDirect canola flea beetle project has shown enough promise that chief executive officer Hugh Grant mentioned it to investors during a presentation on the firm’s first quarter financial results for 2016.
“Today, flea beetles cause about $300 million in damages in North America alone and this technology would provide growers with an alternative solution to the neonics currently used to control flea beetles,” he said.
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“So with the significant strides we’ve made in BioDirect manufacturing, we see tangible solutions coming to market to help growers.”
Chris Anderson, the company’s global canola technology lead, said the BioDirect canola project uses double stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) to interrupt the production of a specific protein that the flea beetle needs to live.
The project has advanced from discovery to Phase 1 of Monsanto’s research and development pipeline. It was field tested in multiple locations across Canada and the United States last year.
“We were pretty encouraged,” said Anderson.
“It was our first time out in the field, and we can definitely show that we can protect plants from flea beetle attack.”
Field trials conducted in Portage la Prairie, Man., show that flea beetle populations in canola treated with the BioDirect technology were reduced by 80 percent, 12 days after infestation, compared to less than 10 percent in untreated fields.
“We’re in very early days here, but we’ve had some pretty good success in applying it directly to the crop,” said Anderson.
The product is applied as a foliar spray.
If the project continues to deliver promising results, it could eventually result in an alternative to neonics, which have been under public scrutiny for killing bees.
Anderson said neonics are used as a seed treatment on nearly all of the canola planted in North America, but they have been banned in the European Union and restricted in Ontario.
The EU ban has led to an over-reliance on pyrethroids, which has led to increased resistance to that insecticide in flea beetle populations.
“We are lucky in Western Canada right now that we still have access to neonic insecticides, but that isn’t the case for all producers everywhere,” he said.
Anderson said the RNA interference technology is new and needs further testing. It is also a new technology for regulators, which could present challenges in getting the product to market.
He said farmers may see a product some time around the middle of the next decade. It will provide another tool for controlling one of the most damaging insects facing canola growers.
“I’m quite excited as a western Canadian person and someone who has worked on canola my whole life to see canola really being on the cutting edge of this,” he said. “I think that’s super exciting.”
