Weed control in row crop farming through natural biocementation

ended

Dust BioSolutions is a Munich-based start-up company that aims to become the “no.1 address for biological binders” worldwide. Its mission is to develop, produce, and sell products that solidify permeable materials to improve sustainability, profitability and innovation of established industries with the help of biotechnology. Dust BioSolutions has developed a proprietary technology platform and patented applications based on a bio-geochemical process called microbiologically induced calcium carbonate precipitation. In 2016, Dust BioSolutions decided to expand its product range on weed prevention and management in the agriculture sector. BioWeedControl, which comes either in a solid (powder) or in a liquid form has been successfully developed to a TRL6. Dust BioSolutions has collaboration agreements for final product development with different industry partners and currently more than 25 large scale field tests ongoing. Results show that BioWeedControl has comparable performance to most commonly used products, but can also leverage on additional functionalities. Competition from weeds is one of the major factors reducing crop yield and farmers’ income. This issue is worsened by the growing number of weeds becoming herbicide-resistant. BioWeedControl wants to overcome many disadvantages of currently available products. Dust BioSolutions expects BioWeedControl to become one of the best alternative solutions to weed prevention in the agriculture sector.