December 19, 2024

By Gerelyn Terzo, Global AgInvesting Media

Swiss agtech giant Syngenta Crop Protection alongside partner Enko, an AI-informed crop health company, has reached a key milestone toward sustainable weed control solutions. Through a multi-year weed-control collaboration, Syngenta and Enko have advanced new molecules, building on the success of fungal control research unveiled earlier this year. With a goal of uncovering novel weed control molecules capable of controlling a wide spectrum of weeds that affect critical cropping systems, Syngenta and Enko are looking to introduce greater innovation in herbicide technology to farmers.

The companies have been targeting a new Mode of Action (MoA), which is how herbicide controls vulnerable plants. Through Enko’s ENKOMPASS platform, they have been able to uncover new leads targeting this MoA, leading to reduced time and costs compared with the traditional ag R&D processes.

Enko Co-Founder and CEO Jacqueline Heard shared with GAI News that this crop protection discovery project is still in the R&D phase, noting that the companies remain 10 years out from commercialization with this project’s findings. She added: “The products will likely control many types of broadleaf and grass weeds including those that are significant problems growers face today. Our crop targets include the most important food and fiber crops globally.”

Left unchecked, uncontrolled weeds threaten to eradicate approximately 50 percent of corn and soybean crops in the U.S. and Canada, which would cost the industry tens of billions of dollars, according to the latest data by the Weed Science Society of America. In fact, crop losses to weeds globally already cost the industry $32 billion per year. One thing is clear – the ag industry needs solutions as weeds continue to threaten crops at a time when farmers are already dealing with challenges such as inflation and climate-change related issues including severe weather.

In their announcement, Syngenta and Enko pointed to aggressive weeds like Palmer amaranth, waterhemp and multiple types of grasses including blackgrass and Italian ryegrass that create headwinds for the health of crops across the planet. By using new MoAs and various methods of weed control, including manual weeding or crop rotations, the industry can confront resistant weeds and protect the sustainability of crop protection solutions.

“Meeting the milestone means that the project has already been successful in meeting pre-defined criteria for this stage of the collaboration and is able to proceed in the next steps towards ultimately bringing an innovative solution to market,” Heard told GAI News.

Enko, based in Mystic, Connecticut, takes a hybrid approach to MOA and molecule discovery, harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) technology with human expertise for greater scientific rigor, precision and accuracy. Its target-based solution goes after pests, not the environment, leading to quicker and safer results for humans and crops.

The ENKOMPASS platform is able to design molecules with DNA barcodes attached to interact precisely, leading to better results. Enko describes “libraries” comprising of billions of compounds that are able to inactivate the identified protein targets — guided by advanced computational tools including AI and Machine Learning algorithms — in a way that’s safe for crops, humans and the environment.

Syngenta Crop Protection Head of Research Camilla Corsi stated, “As an innovation leader, Syngenta is pursuing some of the most cutting-edge research in the field of agricultural technology. This novel solution will be an important breakthrough in the field of weed control and will represent a critical tool for resistance management.”

Enko CEO and Co-Founder Jacqueline Heard said, “Weed and pest adaptation to changing climate conditions and resistance to on-market products will create a dearth of food in many parts of the world as populations grow. By using our ENKOMPASS platform, we can significantly reduce discovery time for new safe crop protection solutions and get them into the hands of farmers as quickly as possible.”

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