Hey readers 👋

There’s a lot happening in the industry this week!

Several of these stories show how biologicals can work alongside conventional crop inputs, with microbes complementing chemical treatments and fertilizers rather than replacing them entirely.

A shared theme is making microbes work better in practice through engineering, smarter formulations and delivery.

Let’s dive in.

A biofungicide built on the yeast Papiliotrema terrestris PT22AV was tested against rice blast in four field trials across northern Italy over the 2023 and 2024 growing seasons by researchers at the University of Molise and CREA.

The product is YSY, from AgroVentures, containing 3.5 × 10⁹ CFU per gram. The paper describes it as being in an advanced registration process in Europe and the United States as both a fungicide and a nematicide. Its proposed mode of action centres on competition for space and nutrients and the induction of plant defences.

Applied alone, YSY reduced disease incidence and severity by approximately 50 to 80%, depending on dose, site and cultivar. At the full rate of 1 kg per hectare it lifted grain yield by 10 to 15% over untreated plots in the 2024 validation trials, and outperformed a registered commercial biological standard.

The integrated programme showed the potential to reduce chemical fungicide use. Replacing one of two pyraclostrobin treatments with the yeast, applied at the later growth stages, held disease control and yield at levels statistically comparable to the full two-application chemical programme.

Both programmes increased grain yield by 20 to 25% over untreated plots in the 2024 trials, with no phytotoxicity observed.

Disease pressure was low to moderate, the yeast was less consistent at the reduced dose, and seed treatment added no measurable benefit under the conditions tested. Pre-activating the yeast with the fermentation activator ACT-01 for three hours before spraying often brought half-dose efficacy to a level comparable with the full dose, suggesting that its physiological state at application also matters.

The authors position PT22AV as a complement to fungicides rather than a stand-alone replacement, and call for further trials under higher disease pressure. They frame the findings as an example of European crop protection moving towards more integrated systems, in line with the 10th Omnibus Package on plant protection products.

Azospirillum brasilense does not form spores, which makes it vulnerable to environmental stress and hard to keep alive on a seed. Researchers at Embrapa and partner universities in Brazil built a dry formulation around poly(glycerol citrate), a polyester made from glycerol and citric acid, with trehalose added to protect the cells through drying.

The powder was tested against a liquid inoculant as the control, one of the formats Azospirillum is conventionally supplied in. On untreated maize seeds the liquid delivered more cells: about 7.4 × 10⁵ CFU per seed against 4.0 × 10⁵ for the powder. Two hours later, recovery from the liquid treatment was below the detection limit of 10² CFU per seed, while the powder yielded around 5 × 10⁴, and still around 2 × 10⁴ after 24 hours. Recovery from seeds pretreated with fungicide and insecticide did not differ significantly from the untreated-seed baseline measured after two hours.

The authors attribute the protection to a polymer barrier that moderates water loss and drying stress. Of the three drying methods tested, freeze-drying gave the strongest storage performance, maintaining approximately 10⁸ CFU per gram through 180 days in vacuum-sealed bags at 4 °C.

The paper cites earlier research suggesting that cells aggregating on dry seed surfaces can cause plate counts to underestimate viability. Undetectable recovery therefore does not establish that all bacteria had died. The findings support a protective approach to seed inoculation with sensitive bacteria, but effects on plant growth, yield and field performance remain untested.

Mosaic put PowerCoat on sale in Paraguay this month, its first biological fertilizer in Latin America.

The product coats conventional dry fertilizer granules with live bacteria. The technology is intended to improve fertilizer efficiency and nutrient uptake, while the microorganisms spread across the field in the same pass as the fertilizer. Keeping them alive was the hard part: Felipe Pecci, commercial vice president for the region, said that selecting a set of strains that both tolerate the fertilizer and promote crop growth was a major challenge.

PowerCoat has obtained registration in Paraguay, while its planned rollout in Brazil remains dependent on pending regulation. The company opened the only laboratory in Latin America that tests strain and fertilizer compatibility, in Uberaba, Minas Gerais, earlier this year, and has yet to launch PowerCoat there.

Glymax, the exclusive distributor in Paraguay, names the two microorganisms in PowerCoat: Bacillus tequilensis and Bacillus velezensis. Mosaic lists a two-year shelf life for PowerCoat and reports gains of 3.5 bags per hectare in soybean and 8 in maize on tropical soils, on the 60-kilogram regional bag.

The launch illustrates how Mosaic is integrating biologicals directly into conventional fertilizer and its established distribution systems, allowing farmers to apply mineral nutrients and microorganisms in a single operation.

Robigo, a company that engineers living microbes to disable essential genes in plant pathogens, has raised a Series A led by Leaps by Bayer, with Illumina Ventures, SVG Thrive, Congruent Ventures and Endeavor8 joining.

Its ARGO platform combines synthetic biology with computational design of the active ingredients, which are RNA interference sequences that silence genes the pathogen needs to survive. It starts with microorganisms that have associations with a lot of plants and already carry biocontrol activity, and improves them adding new functions. In the soil they build what the company calls a bioshield, an environment where the pathogen does not establish well in. The products have high specificity targeting only the pathogens.

Two products are furthest along, both against soil-borne fungal diseases. An engineered microbial seed treatment for sudden death syndrome in soybean is projected for a 2028 US launch and one for Fusarium wilt in lettuce and berries for 2029.

Andee Wallace, Robigo's co-founder and CEO, told AgFunderNews that growers should not have to choose between a product that works and one that is affordable or sustainable, and that what they ask for is something simple that fits what they are already doing.

Juergen Eckhardt, who heads Leaps by Bayer, framed the investment as backing an engine rather than a single product, one that can be pointed at a range of soil-borne pathogens across broadacre crops.