Biostimulants, a subset of biologicals specifically focused on enhancing plant growth and development, are perceived as a vital and growing component of sustainable agriculture.
Biostimulants are products applied to plants, seeds or the root environment that enhance natural plant processes, leading to an improved nutrient use efficiency, increased tolerance to abiotic stress or better crop quality. Yet their performance can vary depending on environmental factors such as temperature and local climate.
Artificial intelligence is speeding up the development of the next generation of biostimulants, believes Syngenta.
Like all the major agribusinesses Syngenta has made significant investments in biologicals – including the purchase of Valagro in 2020, which went on to generate around $400 million in revenue in 2023.
It has now announced a collaboration with AI company TraitSeq which it believes could help farmers transition to more sustainable practices.
TraitSeq specialises in applying proprietary machine learning approaches to omics data analysis for agriculture. A spin-out from the Earlham Institute in the UK, its platform combines omics data with other data types to predict complex phenotypic traits.
This hopes to provides agri-tech companies with actionable insights to accelerate and optimise chemical and biological crop input development, plant gene editing, and complex trait development in agricultural crops and animals.
Combining crop biology with proprietary AI methods
Syngenta will now use its knowledge of crop biology to complement TraitSeq’s proprietary AI methods to identify highly specific indicators of a plant’s cellular state called biomarkers.
When activated, these biomarkers can indicate how well a plant is responding to efforts to boost its health or to block the effects of external, abiotic stressors.
Syngenta has extensive data across different branches of science – such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and phenomics. Using TraitSeq’s sophisticated proprietary platform, scientists from both teams hope to leverage AI to analyse complex biological big data, to uncover the intricate molecular interactions that impact a crop’s ability to utilize available nutrients in the soil.
Once specific biomarkers can be identified, scientists hope to be able to quickly and accurately assess the efficacy of a new biostimulant in enhancing plant health.
Dr. Joshua Colmer, CEO of TraitSeq, explains: “This partnership highlights how TraitSeq’s versatile platform can transform agricultural input development by uncovering predictive biomarkers that directly link molecular insights to biostimulant performance.
“By equipping Syngenta’s innovation pipeline with these capabilities, we aim to optimise and accelerate the development of new biological solutions, which will support farmers in adopting more sustainable agricultural practices.”
The development of such biostimulants also fits in with Syngenta’s efforts to support farmers transition to regenerative practices and its commitment to sustainability. Syngenta’s recently launched Portfolio Sustainability Framework (PSF) rates Syngenta’s products for sustainability and stakeholder alignments into 3 tiers. New products are also included with the aim to shift the portfolio towards the top tier.
Speeding up the process the find the successful products
The two companies say it is not yet possible to estimate a launch date for a new product. A TraitSeq spokesperson told AgTechNavigator “the point of TraitSeq being involved is to fast track the process so that Syngenta can select the best products with the best chance of being active in the field.”
Camilla Corsi, head of crop protection research at Syngenta, adds: “We are accelerating the pace at which we innovate, to deliver solutions farmers urgently need. Technologies such as TraitSeq’s AI-driven platform enable us to revolutionize our research, attain important data-driven insights, so that we can develop the next-generation of sustainable solutions faster – while further strengthening our pipeline of innovative agricultural technologies.”