Hey readers,

This week's edition is running a little late (apologies!), because we are attending the Biocontrol & Biostimulants LATAM conference. Next week I'll bring you all the breakthroughs I'm hearing about here.

For now, here's what we have for this week: NewLeaf's bioinsecticide, with its army of pink bacteria, now fights pests across four crops. A Streptomyces new to science shows real promise against anthracnose in cucumber. And Syngenta puts its label on an Israeli mycorrhizal fungus, with the carbon it stores turning into credits for the grower.

Let's start.

Pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs, PPFMs for short, are bacteria that live on and inside plants and feed on the methanol the plant emits. They were long treated as too fragile to build a product around. NewLeaf Symbiotics built one anyway: a bioinsecticide called TS201, whose active strain is Methylorubrum extorquens NLS0042, and its effect on the plant deserves a closer look.

One thing first: TS201 does not kill the pest. According to a study from the company's own researchers (bioRxiv preprint, May 2025), the bacteria act on the plant, not the insect. They switch on the plant's induced systemic resistance through the jasmonic acid and ethylene pathways, and they make maize release methyl anthranilate, a volatile that repels the corn rootworm. They also make the plant grow more fine roots, so it can handle the root damage the pest still causes.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has expanded TS201's approval so it can be applied at planting on corn, soybeans, cotton and rice, with rice the latest addition on the list (NewLeaf, February 4 2026). NewLeaf reports a field advantage of about 550 kilograms of corn per hectare across 91 sites over three seasons when the product is paired with its Terrasym 450 biostimulant.

This is a biological that does not have to kill the pest directly but hands the job to the plant. What was once a bacteria dismissed as too delicate is now a strong bioinsecticide across four major crops.

Anthracnose, a fungal disease caused by Colletotrichum orbiculare, scars the leaves and fruit of cucumber and its relatives. Screening soil for something to hold it back, researchers at Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin, China, found an actinomycete new to science and named it Streptomyces fugnipugnans, with NEAU-S77 as its type strain (BMC Microbiology, March 17 2026).

On a plate the strain held the fungus back by about 66 percent, and even the liquid its culture leaves behind, once the cells are strained out, did a little better, at 72 percent. The clearest result came in pots under greenhouse conditions, where untreated plants reached a disease index of 57 while treated plants dropped to 14, a control level of about 80 percent.

Some of what makes the strain interesting is written into its genome, which is unusually large for a bacteria, more than 10 million base pairs, and loaded with the machinery for making antimicrobial compounds. The researchers counted 66 clusters of genes devoted to secondary metabolites and more than 350 tied to antibiotic production. The exact compound behind the effect has not been pinned down yet, but the toolkit to make it is plainly there.

Those compounds also turned out to be durable. In the lab they kept working after heat below 100 degrees Celsius, after UV light, and across acidic and neutral conditions, the kind of resilience a biological needs if it is ever going to survive the trip from the flask to the field.

A new species that already reaches 80 percent control in the greenhouse, and carries a genome full of potential to make antifungals, is worth following into a real product.

Syngenta has partnered with Groundwork BioAg, an Israeli company that makes mycorrhizal inoculants, to sell Groundwork's Rootella product under the Syngenta label (Syngenta, July 14 2026).

Groundwork keeps the manufacturing, the supply and the digital tools, and also runs the carbon side. Syngenta brings the label and the distribution, starting in Latin America and Europe, across corn, soy, cereals and sunflower.

Mycorrhizal fungi form a symbiosis with plant roots, extending their reach for water and phosphorus, and in the process they move carbon into the soil.

What this deal adds is a second value stream: the carbon the fungus stores underground is turned into verified credits through Rootella Carbon, a program the company describes as running across more than 280,000 hectares worldwide, with the first credits already issued. The company says Rootella is already used on millions of acres of cropland.

Petra Laux, Syngenta's chief sustainability officer, framed it as a model that builds resilience, restores soil health and stores carbon in the soil over the long term, while generating credits the farmer benefits from.

Growers have always used mycorrhiza for freeing up nutrients for the plant, but the carbon-credits part adds a second payoff.