BugBiome wins Innovate UK grant to advance bioinsecticide against cabbage stem flea beetle

BugBiome, an agri-biotech start-up that moved to Norwich Research Park last year, has secured a 24-month grant from Innovate UK to fund a collaborative project with the John Innes Centre, Harper Adams and Applied Insect Science. The £500,000 award will be used to develop a new biological insecticide to control cabbage stem flea beetles (CSFB) in oilseed rape.

Changes in regulations means that farmers have fewer chemical-based insecticides options than ever before to protect their crops from pests. That means the agriculture industry is actively looking for credible alternatives where the economics can work in arable crops. BugBiome is aiming to develop a range of products that will meet these requirements, its first one being an aphicide which aims to provide protection to crops such as potatoes and sugar beet against aphid infestations which can devastate harvests.

This new project marks its expansion beyond ‘sucking pests’ and beginning work on ‘coleopteran pests’ i.e. beetles, with CSFB in oilseed rape being its first target in this area.

James Warner, MD of the independent farmer cooperative, United Oilseeds said, “With the huge demand for rapeseed oil in the UK, there has never been a more important time to find sustainable solutions to CSFB which can cause complete crop failure if left unchecked. We are very keen to see the outcomes of this project”.

The project involves leading experts in CSFB including Dr Rachel Wells, a senior scientist at the John Innes Centre (JIC), whos group is supplying CSFB from JICs experimental colonies for product testing and supporting validation of promising products in miniaturised plant assays, and Prof Tom Pope at Harper Adams University who will lead on behavioural characterisation of the products.

Applied Insect Science is a dedicated contract research laboratory for biopesticides and other low-risk crop protection technologies and will supply microbial ecotoxicology expertise, crucial for getting new products to market.

Dr Alicia Showering, CEO of BugBiome, said, “We are excited to apply our biological insecticide platform to a new pest target as we are keenly aware of the problems of UK farmers struggling to establish oilseed rape since the ban on neonicotinoid use nearly 10 years ago. At BugBiome, we have already made great progress with our aphicide product and this project, working with the best expertise in the industry, will mean we will be able to make significant progress in developing treatments for coleopteran pests such as cabbage stem flea beetle, which we aim to commercialise post-project.”

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