Taiwan Bayer and NPUST Form Strategic Alliance to Develop Microbial Agricultural Materials

Taiwan Bayer and National Pingtung University of Science and Technology signed a strategic alliance MOU in June, "and in the future will invest in developing biological materials, using microbial bacteria to induce plants to produce disease resistance." As the first university in all of Taiwan, China to sign an MOU with Bayer, NPUST president Tai Chang-hsien pledged that he hopes to work with Taiwan Bayer to do plant medicine better, and microbial materials will absolutely be a major focus of cooperation.

Bayer: Demand in the microbial formulation market is trending upward

"Although chemical pesticides still have their necessity, for Bayer, developing low-toxicity chemical pesticides is a definite direction; but Bayer has indeed observed that demand in the biological formulation market is trending upward, and Bayer very much supports this, and will gradually introduce biological formulations in the future." Taiwan Bayer Crop Science general manager Tu Yueh-hui stated, but this cannot be used to simply discuss "whether biological formulations will replace chemical pesticides," since these are two different market directions, each with its own market demand.

"There are already chemical agents that induce plant resistance, and the next step is to use microorganisms." Tai Chang-hsien stated that because the public is increasingly worried that chemical agents will have negative impacts on the human body and the environment, "traditional pesticides not only have a serious drift problem, but local non-target organisms and beneficial insects also disappear because of pesticides, and crops even raise food safety concerns over pesticide residues." He hopes to reduce the use of chemical pesticides.

"But if it is microbial bacteria, there is no need to worry." Tai Chang-hsien further stated that by screening specific microbial bacteria to stimulate plants, the plants will become sensitive and independently produce resistance, thereby reducing the damage to crops from pests and diseases, "and if success can be demonstrated in the future, it may even further reduce the amount of pesticide used." It is actually similar to the concept of humans getting vaccines.

Native microbial seed coating technology applied to tropical fruit trees

As early as 2011, Taiwan Bayer worked with NPUST to develop the "Prophet Rice" seed coating technology, coating the seed surface with a dedicated agent to induce rice seedlings to produce resistance against rice blast, sheath blight, leaf rollers, striped stem borers and other pests and diseases, "so that farmers do not need to go into the fields to spray from transplanting to booting." Taiwan Bayer Crop Science product development department head Lin Wen-yi stated.

With the basic research theory of Prophet Rice already in place, "the next step is to carry out biological material technology development targeting cruciferous vegetable crops, and even fruit trees." Assistant professor Yang Yung-yu of the NPUST Department of Plant Medicine, who is mainly implementing the cooperative project together with Taiwan Bayer, pointed out that the current cooperation project will focus on "applying native microbial bacteria to native crops." Therefore, lemon, pineapple, mango and other tropical fruit trees of southern Taiwan are currently targeted as the key trial crops.