Originally published by Brian Sparks in Greenhouse Growers
Crop Enhancement, a manufacturer of sustainable crop protection products, has announced a partnership with OHP, Inc., a leader in technology-based plant protection solutions for ornamentals. The partnership expands the diversity of commercially available options to effectively manage ornamental pests.
“Crop Enhancement is thrilled to work with a leader like OHP to increase availability and advance the adoption of sustainable pesticides,” says Jean Pougnier, CEO of Crop Enhancement. “We are working together to bring new tools to the industry to manage pests while helping growers achieve outstanding results.”
Read the full article in the Greenhouse Grower.
Originally published by Tim Hammerich in California AG Today
With increased consumer and regulatory pressure on crop protection products, many companies are looking to develop alternatives to legacy chemicals. Crop Enhancement is one such company that’s taking a novel approach to protection from insect pests. Here’s CEO Damian Hajduk.
Hajduk… “Our approach at Crop Enhancement has been to focus on the plant surface and we wanted to make that surface harder to attack. We’ve created non-toxic plant-based coatings that protect crops from pests and diseases. We supply them as a concentrate that gets diluted in a spray tank and applied just like other crop protectants.”
Read the full article in the California Ag Today.
Originally published by Crystal Nay in Nut Grower Magazine
From mating disruption to sterilized insect technology, biological pesticides, navel orangeworm has been the subject of a great deal of research into mitigating and/or eliminating the pest. Aside from the technologies chemistries themselves, there’s an environmental sustainability factor that is quickly jumping to the Forefront of industry. In addition to the current options, a new alternative is making its way onto the scene and yielding intriguing results.
Crop Enhancement, based in San Jose, California, and founded by chemical engineer David Soane in his Soane Labs incubator, is gearing up to commercialize in the U.S. a unique product called CropCoat – an organic, non-toxic alternative for the control of navel orangeworm (NOW) that doesn’t actually act on the pest, but on the pest’s environment.
Read the full article in the National Nutgrower Magazine Pest Control Issue.
Originally published in AGDaily by Jaclyn Krymowski
As with so much else in nature, crop pests — including insects, fungi, and diseases — are not static. They are ever-changing and evolving, forcing agriculturalists to come up with new ways to combat and respond to them.
One of the beautiful things about modern-day agriculture is the many ways farmers can diversify their arsenals to better combat these pests to best fit the needs and situation of their particular farm. Among these tools are biological pesticides (or biopesticides).
Read the full article on AGDaily.com.
Originally published in AgriBusiness by David Frabotta
CropCoat is showing that there are effective organic control options for insects and disease. Biological startup Crop Enhancement is growing its pilot trials on cocoa, coffee, and almonds and is setting the stage for entry into pistachios, apples, grapes, and higher-value vegetables like tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach.
“We are generating an approach for safer biological-based crop protection. It is really a new class of product. There are very few products that act the way our product does,” says Jean Pougnier, Crop Enhancement CEO. “We don’t act on the pest. We change the pest’s perception of the environment so that the plants are camouflaged from the insects, and that provides the protection, so it’s a unique technology.”
Read the full article on AgriBusiness.com.
Originally published in Forbes by Jennifer Kite-Powell
Michael Lavin, founder and managing partner of Germin8 Ventures, says over the past decade, consumers have shifted their mindset around food in exciting ways.
“Whereas we once favored convenient nutrition at low-cost, over time we have placed greater importance on clean labels and wholesomeness, and now consumers want functional, health-supportive ingredients as well,” said Lavin.
Read the full article on Forbes.com.
Originally published in IFT by Dale Buss
Tomorrow’s grain rows, vegetable fields, and specialty crop groves will be much busier places than the relatively passive acreage of yesterday. On the surface, sensors built into crops will signal soil conditions; digital irrigation systems will precisely direct water streams; and robotic guardians will pull weeds. In the air above, satellites and drones will photograph plants with enough precision to count the spots on a ladybug’s wing. In the soil below, new wonders of botanical manipulation and digital information will optimize available nutrients, elevate plant performance, and store results.
Read the full article on ift.org.
Originally published in New Atlas by Ben Coxworth
While pest insects can have a devastating effect on crops, pesticides can likewise cause a great deal of damage to the environment. That’s where CropCoat comes in, as it’s designed not to kill harmful insects, but to “hide” plants from them instead.
Created by California-based startup Crop Enhancement, CropCoat consists of a proprietary blend of non-toxic ingredients including an undisclosed botanical extract. It gets mixed with water then sprayed onto crops, using conventional agricultural equipment. Within 12 to 24 hours, the water evaporates and the CropCoat hardens into a biodegradable film that coats most of each plant’s stems and leaves.
Read the full article on newatlas.com.
Crop Enhancement raises $8m Series B to support trials for its ‘safer chemistry’ pesticide coating
“When you think about putting a film around something in the food space, you most likely think about packaging or perhaps one of the growing number of shelf life enhancement startups that coat produce in a special material to stop them going bad. Last year, for example, Sufresca raised a $500,000 seed round for its edible fruit and vegetable coating to reduce food waste and curb plastic packaging while Apeel Sciences scored a $70 million Series C in 2018 for a shelf-life extending coating made from agricultural byproducts.“
Q&A with Mike Wilbur, Kevin Chen on Cavallo Ventures’ Latest Bet
“With its investment, Cavallo Ventures aims to accelerate the development of Crop Enhancement’s breakthrough crop protection technology in the United States — particularly for the production of high-value fruit and vegetable crops.
CropLife chatted with both Mike Wilbur, President and CEO of Cavallo Ventures, and Kevin Chen, CEO of Crop Enhancement, on the background of the new investment, and what we can expect to see next with the company’s technology and marketing.”