Biological control company Exosect has announced a further agreement with a global crop protection specialist to research the capacity of its powder platforms to control a variety of pests in apples and pears.

Focusing on integrated pest management (IPM) and biological control, Intrachem Bio is working in collaboration with Exosect to develop IPM solutions using biologicals that can control the population of a wide range of pests.

Exosect md Martin Brown said: “There is huge potential for the use of biologicals to control pests in the agricultural industry. Our platform technology can be used to control a vast number of insects simply by altering the active ingredient and lure present. To this point, we have developed our targeted delivery systems with semio-chemicals and traditional pesticides and in all cases we have reduced the need for blanket crop applications thus vastly reducing the amount of active ingredient used within the crop. The next logical step is to develop our technology with biological active ingredients and preliminary laboratory studies have proved very promising.”

Exosect has also extended its agreement with Intrachem Bio to include trial sites for Exosex CM in German and Italian top fruit.

Exosex CM requires 25 dispensers per hectare, each containing a synthetic female codling moth pheromone, which is formulated with Exosect’s Entostat powder. This lures males into dispensers and the Entostat powder then adheres to the bodies of the male. The sensors of the coated moths are overwhelmed leaving them unable to detect females and they do not mate.

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