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- Bio-Gene Technology (BGT) has confirmed that its Flavocide product has been able to meet key industry standards
- Results confirm that Flavocide successfully controlled a key grain storage pest over a nine-month period in both field and laboratory conditions
- This nine-month benchmark is important for commercialisation
- These results deliver an excellent platform for the upcoming trial program which will aim to determine the optimum combination of Flavocide with other chemical groups
- Bio-Gene is currently up 10.3 per cent with shares trading for 16 cents apiece
Bio-Gene Technology (BGT) has confirmed that its Flavocide product has been able to meet key industry standards.
Results confirm that Flavocide demonstrates control over the offspring of adult Lesser grain borer – a type of insect that feeds from grain and cereal products – over a nine-month period in both field and laboratory conditions.
Residual control over a nine-month period is considered a key industry standard for any new grain protectant to enter the market.
Additionally, these results deliver an excellent platform for the upcoming trial program in collaboration with BASF, the Department of Agriculture & Fisheries (DAF), and the Grains Research & Development Corporation.
This program aims to determine the optimum combination of Flavocide with other chemical groups to generate commercial products.
“We are delighted with these results which confirm Flavocide has achieved a significant industry standard and further strengthens the commercial viability of our technology,” Bio-Gene CEO Richard Jagger commented.
“The objective of this trial program was to confirm Flavocide was able to control the most common grain storage pest in Australia over a nine-month period and pleasingly we have achieved that,” he added.
Flavocide is a nature-identical beta-triketone molecule that is produced by synthetic chemical means.
In order to validate the product, Bio-Gene undertook a grain storage trial program that was developed with the assistance of CSIRO.
It aims to deliver significantly increased production yield compared with extraction from plant materials and could become a staple product for storage facilities seeking to mitigate the growing problem of insecticide and loss of yield.
“These trial results show that Flavocide provides control of F1 adult progeny in bioassay assessments of both laboratory and field stored wheat,” Dr Manoj Nayak, Leader of the Postharvest Grain Protection Unit within DAF stated.
“In addition to these assessments that confirm residual efficacy, we have also been monitoring for the presence of natural infestations of pests in the field stored grain,” he added.
Currently, there is no single chemistry that controls all major pests that impact stored grain and the incidence of pest resistance is rising in Australia and around the world.
In some cases, losses of up to 70 per cent of grain in storage have been attributed to pests but Flavocide has the potential to create formulations that will enable control of the full range of pests including pests resistant to other classes of chemistry.
A new product which introduces a new mode of action is critical for pest management to reduce the potential of increased resistance in the future.
Bio-Gene is up 10.3 per cent today with shares trading for 16 cents apiece at 12:16 pm AEDT.
