Precision Biocontrol

Biocontrol is a smaller segment of crop protection — but one with miles of opportunity for growth. Meister Media Worldwide’s latest Global Insight Series Report takes a look at attitudes and and adoption of biocontrol at the farm level, how biologicals fit with the latest developments in ag technology, and some developments that are making these tools more attractive to growers, agriculture, and the entire food chain for 2022 and beyond.

The report features a number insightful articles and videos, including one by American Fruit Grower Senior Editor Thomas Skernivitz titled “Precision Biocontrol”. Here’s a snippet of that article:

The best tag team going in agriculture these days might be the combination of biological controls and precision technologies. Just ask the good nematodes.

As high as Chris Thrasher is on the biologicals industry, the Director of North America at Agrauxine gets even more excited knowing that companies such as his can now take a biocontrol application and dot an “i” in the field.

“We can be more prescriptive in biologicals,” Thrasher says. “If we can go and pinpoint a hot area in a field with, for example, nematodes, we don’t have to apply that $30-an-acre application to the whole field. We can go to that hot spot and, if we have the right type of biologicals, we can control the reproductive cycle of the nematodes. And we also know that there are good nematodes out there along with bad nematodes.”

What happens to the beneficial nematodes? Ideally, nothing, says Bond McInnes, Technical Service Manager with AgBiome. With the help of precision technologies, that is what separates biocontrols, he says, from conventional treatments — the ability to recognize, isolate, and protect beneficial organisms while eliminating the bad ones.

Read the full article in the “Global Insight Series 2022: Biological Crop Protection”.