Using smell to limit insect colonisation and crop damage

The green peach aphids (Mysus Persicae) which spreads BYV in sugar beet was controlled from 1993 until 2018 with a neonicotinoid insecticide dressing on beet seeds.

But neonicotinoids came under fire for contributing to the decline of bees.

Since 2013, they were progressively banned by the European Commission. However, temporary emergency exemptions allowed some growers to continue using them, until a European High Court ruling in 2023, which was strongly criticised by EU sugar beet industry, but welcomed by environmental campaigners.

Other insecticides have failed to prevent crop damage, and the French government's National Research and Innovation Plan continues to pursue solutions, mainly in plant genetics but also in control methods such as removal of viral reservoirs, flight modelling, plants, companions, repellents, etc.

Subsidised by public funding of up to €7m, this plan is co-financed by the INRAE public research institute, the Institut Technique de la Betterave interprofessional organ of the sugar beet industry, and seed companies. Since 2021, solutions have been trialed on 500 hectares of experimental plots across all French sugar beet regions.

French beet crops have been worst hit by BYV, which is one of the reasons the country's acreage has fallen, and the EU-27 beet sugar production forecast for next year is 7% below the 2022 level, despite extraordinarily high EU sugar prices in recent years.

Founded in 2019, and based in Rennes, France, the Agriodor company has been involved in the search to find alternatives to neonicotinoids for sugar beet.

The unique biocontrol technology developed by Agriodor has attracted €5m of venture capital funding. The technology combines odours based on kairomones (attractants) and allomones (repellents) that modify the behavior of pest insects and allow for the reduction of damage caused to crops, while respecting the environment and biodiversity.

Used in the field, the odours limit insect colonisation and crop damage.

Insects use smell to feed and reproduce. Smells guide them to egg-laying sites, or help them to avoid certain toxic plants. This means that using smells to disrupt aphids can reduce the spread of crop-damaging viruses. The product has been formulated for easy application with farm equipment, allowing for large-scale use.

Agriodor says the promising results in 2022 (more than 50% reduction of aphids on beet) for this neonicotinoid alternative can help to secure the sugar beet industry in Europe.

The mode of action of repellent odours is to delay the first infestations by aphids, reducing by 10 to 15 days the timing of a harmful threshold level of aphid on beet.

This can help to increase the effectiveness of aphicides, used in conjunction but at reduced levels. Unlike using insecticides, there is no risk of resistance to the Agriodor product, or habituation, because the odour product does not kill the aphids, and therefore does not exert any selection pressure.

In 2022, French Tech Rise's “Impact” prize for start-ups went to Agriodor.

Now, the French government has authorised Agriodor's products for trials on 500 hectares of sugar beet fields. The company hopes to obtain a new emergency marketing authorisation for 2025.

Agriodor already sells preparations for lentil and faba bean crops. Sugar beet products are at the field trial, regulatory, and manufacturing stage. The target market is Europe's 1.5 million hectares of beet.

There are also field trials of a product for potato crops, and Agriodor is working on a similar product for rapeseed crops. The European oilseed rape industry has estimated at €900m a year the cost to it of the neonicotinoid ban in Europe.