New Technologies in Agriculture: Pesticides Adhere Better to Plant Leaves

Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) have developed an innovative technology that ensures better adhesion of pesticide droplets to plant leaves. This approach will allow farmers to significantly reduce costs on agrochemicals and lower the risks of environmental pollution.

This is reported by AgroReview

According to information from the university’s press service, the new technology involves coating each pesticide droplet with a special ultra-thin layer of oil. This solution prevents droplets from running off the water-repellent surfaces of leaves, ensuring their fixation. Testing has shown that this technology increases the “stickiness” of droplets by up to 100 times.

RealCoverage Monitoring System

The startup AgZen, founded by researchers from MIT, is already actively implementing the RealCoverage system. This innovative technology serves to monitor the quality of crop treatment in real-time and has allowed for a 30-50% reduction in pesticide costs.

“You could return a billion dollars to American producers if you saved 6 percent of their pesticide budget,” noted Vishnu Jayaprakash, lead author of the research paper and CEO of AgZen.

In laboratory conditions, studies have shown that using the new technology can yield up to 300% additional harvest per plant, opening new opportunities for reducing the volumes of pesticides used by farmers.

Future Plans

By 2025, the system will cover approximately 920,000 acres (372,311 hectares) of agricultural land in the USA and Europe. Investors have already invested 10 million dollars in the commercialization of this technology.

Additionally, agronomists emphasize the importance of monitoring plants such as thistles and lambsquarters on potatoes to ensure timely responses to issues in agricultural production.