PRESS RELEASE - 5th April 2023
Booster™ registrations
Booster™ registrations are approved in
Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Denmark, UK, Czech Republic.
Booster™ Registrations are also proceeding in
Brazil, South Africa, The Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines.
What does Booster do?
Pangaea Biosciences Ltd has developed a new optimized and patented primer formulation, Booster ™, utilizing advanced dispersant technologies. Its main use is in situations with resistance problems and restoring efficacy to insecticides suffering from significant field resistance. This patented product inhibits or neutralizes a pest’s defensive enzyme before the pesticide is applied. The primer leaves the pest in a hypersensitive state so that the concentration of the pesticide will kill even the most resistant types. It does this by deactivating the metabolic pathway (Cytochrome P450) in insects, which causes a breakdown of the insecticide. This is achieved through the precision application of Booster™ and the pesticide by a time delay. “Temporal synergy” is a patented process whereby old chemistry can be rejuvenated and resistance reduced.
Why are Booster™ registrations so important?
The first registration for the use of Booster™ is with pyrethroids to control pollen beetle (Meligethes aeneus). This is a key insect species across Europe with high resistance to pyrethroids in the field especially the further west you go into Europe. In Europe, insecticide resistance has resulted in a 21% yield loss of rapeseed and in some cases a 70% loss In Europe. Booster has already been widely used in the Baltics, the Czech Republic, and Poland with great success.
More than 60% of pollen beetle in Europe are resistant to pyrethroids and in some countries such as Poland, the Baltics, the Czech Republic and Lithuania resistance is much higher than that. Pollen beetle is a major threat to the profitability of oilseed rape in these countries. Booster™ restores efficacy to pyrethroids such as cypermethrin and lambda-cyalothrin. In one set of trials the untreated had eight beetles per plant, a treatment of Fastac (alpha-cypermethrin) had seven beetles per plant, therefore, showing little activity but when Booster™ was added to it, the level of infestation was reduced to one beetle per plant. Booster™ is working on the cytochrome P450 pathway and so making the pollen beetle much more sensitive to the pyrethroid once again.
Booster™ Performance
In the Czech Republic which was the first country in which Booster™ was launched, virtually all of the oilseed rape is attacked by pollen beetles, most of which are highly resistant to pyrethroids. In its first year of commercial launch, Booster™ treated 40,000 hectares of the oilseed rape together with a pyrethroid, which is equivalent to a 20% share, with absolutely no issues or problems at all.
“The performance of Booster™ in the Czech Republic in its launch year is unprecedented– achieving a very high 20% share and with no problems or referrals at all. This is very exciting when we consider the impact of insect resistance across Europe and the world and what a difference Booster™ could make,” says John Edmonds, global product development and a regulatory manager for Pangaea Biosciences.
Pangaea Biosciences has a growing distributor network in Europe but would certainly be interested in expanding the list to other parts of the world. If you are interested, please contact Nick Gooch on Mobile: + 44 (0) 7900 891692 or by email at nick@pangaeabiosciences.com