OXFORD,
England, Aug. 20, 2024 /CNW/ -- Oxford University spin-out Moa Technology has
announced excellent results in multi-country field trials of
promising new classes of herbicide with novel modes of action
recently discovered by the company.
Weeds pose a serious and increasing threat to food security
around the world. With over 270 species of weeds now resistant to
existing commercial herbicides, and no new broad-spectrum
herbicides brought to market in the last forty years, farmers
globally are running out of tools to protect their harvests.
In a presentation to the American Chemical Society in
Denver, Colorado titled
"Discovering and developing the next generation of herbicides with
novel modes of action" Moa revealed that all the chemical classes
tested in trials earlier this year showed promising efficacy in the
field, demonstrating consistent and robust results across multiple
field trials and climatic zones. Trials were conducted in
both pre- and post-emergence in wheat, maize and soya and showed a
good window of selectivity between weeds and crops to allow for
further optimisation. Moa's compounds controlled problem weeds such
as Amaranthus sp. (pigweed), Bassia sp. (Kochia)
and/or Setaria sp. (foxtail) above the commercially relevant
efficacy benchmark (>85% control) with use rates ranging from
1000 g/ha to as low as 250 g/ha. Two of the herbicide candidates
demonstrated better broadleaf and grass weed control than existing
commercial herbicides on a gram-for-gram basis in the majority of
their field trials. A third chemical class, at an earlier
stage of development, delivered good control of broadleaf weeds in
field trials at slightly higher use-rates.
Following the trials, Moa has already started to optimise the
chemistry and formulation of these herbicides to develop them into
lower-use rate products for farmers which are affordable, effective
and sustainable. Later this year, further trials will take
place in the southern hemisphere, as well as first field trials of
other compounds in Moa's rich R&D pipeline.
Moa's H1 2024 field trial programme comprised 45 trials using
industry standard randomised complete block experiments which
included multiple classes of chemistry previously validated in the
laboratory and tested in glasshouses. The trials were carried out
by independent contract research organisations in California, Tennessee, Spain, France
and the UK, covering agricultural production in three different
major climate zones.
Presenting the data at the ACS conference, Dr Shuji Hachisu, Chief Technology Officer at Moa,
said:
"We are extremely pleased with these field trial results, which
are an outstanding validation of our unique approach to herbicide
discovery. Our compounds have demonstrated efficacy far
beyond what would normally be expected from candidates whose
chemistry and formulation have not yet been fully optimised. It is
great news for farmers, who are crying out for a new generation of
novel, effective, safe, cost effective and sustainable products to
combat resistant and problematic weeds."
Spun out of Oxford University in
2017, Moa has developed proprietary technology to discover a whole
new generation of synthetic and bio-herbicidal compounds based on
novel modes of action, to provide farmers with safe,
cost-effective, technologically-advanced solutions at a pace weeds
cannot match. In the last three years, Moa's platform has
already screened over 750,000 compounds and discovered over 70
promising novel modes of action areas. In July 2024, Moa signed a major partnership with
Nufarm to co-develop and commercialise one of these new chemical
series.
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SOURCE MOA Technology