Pangaea Biosciences UK promotes Booster™ for pesticide resistance in Poland

UK biotech company Pangaea Biosciences has announced a partnership with Polish company MILAGRO sp.z o.o. Signed an exclusive agreement to distribute Pangaea's Booster™ products throughout Poland. The agreement is important for Polish agriculture, as the country has a large area of oilseed rape cultivation (more than three times that of the UK) and pollen beetles are one of the main pests of oilseed rape. At present, the problem of resistance of pollen beetles is serious. Booster is a new patented product developed by Pangaea Biosciences to restore the effectiveness of insecticides that have become ineffective due to significant resistance developed by pests.

Commenting on the new contract, Pangaea Biosciences' Northern European sales manager said Poland's agricultural land area is 25 percent larger than that of the United Kingdom and is vital to its economy. The country is a major producer of several important agricultural products such as cereals, potatoes and rapeseed oil. According to the Polish Oil Producers Association, Poland is now the largest producer of oilseed rape in Europe, with an annual output of more than 3 million tons and more than 1 million hectares under cultivation.

Booster™ works by placing pests in a highly sensitive state, allowing the insecticide to kill even the most resistant pests at lower concentrations. It does this by disabling the metabolic pathway (cytochrome P450) in insects responsible for breaking down insecticides. This patented product can give old chemicals a new lease of life and control resistance problems. Experiments showed that pyrethroid insecticides, which had already failed to control pollen, were significantly more effective to 100% when combined with 250-300 ml/ha of Booster™, successfully overcoming pest resistance.

The first registered and commercial use of Booster™ is against the pollen beetle (Meligethes aeneus) in rape. This is a key pest widely distributed in Europe and resistance to pyrethroids is generally high (over 60% on average in Europe). In countries such as Poland and Lithuania, resistance can even reach 80%. In the UK and elsewhere in Europe, the company is also investigating Booster™ in combination with pyrethroids to control the cabbage stem hopping beetle (Psylliodes chrysocephala), as well as other beetles such as the Colorado potato beetle, the Asian bed bug, the Cabbage moth, and more. And plant succulent pests such as whitefly, leafhopper and red spider.

Booster™ 's active ingredient, first discovered in the 1950s by the Rothamsted research Station, deactivates or blocks the normal metabolic pathway responsible for the breakdown of pesticides (cytochrome P450). Its biggest advantage is the ability to give old chemicals a new lease of life, which is a big advantage for farmers considering the huge cost and time to develop new chemicals (over ￡250 million and 10-12 years). Pangaea Biosciences optimizes the formulation of Booster™ to improve its stability and absorption rate, resulting in superior results. 

Booster™ is currently available in Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, the Czech Republic, Denmark and the United Kingdom, and is being registered in Asia and Australia.