Moscow, Idaho
March 3, 2005
A pair of new pesticides recently registered by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency for use against
plant-damaging fungi grew from
University of Idaho
researcher Don Crawford's study of bacteria found among
linseed plant roots. The new pesticides offer a non-toxic
weapon against major fungal diseases that cause extensive
damage to greenhouse, nursery, turf and agricultural crops.
Crawford, a microbiology
professor and director of the Environmental Science program,
said that is the beauty of putting bacteria to work against
fungi. The bacteria, which colonize the plants' roots,
produce chemical defenses at the specific points where the
fungus attacks, delivering microdoses of antibiotics to
specific targets at specific times.
With the investment and
support of Houston-based Natural Industries, two pesticide
products recently won formal approval of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. Both rely on the specific
strain of bacteria that Crawford discovered attack a wide
spectrum of root-damaging fungi. As a result, production has
soared at the small Moscow spin-off company, Innovative
BioSystems, which produces the bacteria commercially.
In all, efforts by company
founder Bill Kowalski, who died three years ago, to market
the product began more than a decade ago. The business is
now led by his son, company president Matt Kowalski.
"Without their support and perseverance, this product would
not have reached the market," Crawford said.
Natural Industries markets
Actinovate SP, the commercial product, and shepherded the
product through EPA registration, a five-year effort. In
January, the company's early work produced a bonus. The
closely-related product, Actino-Iron, won EPA registration
approval in January months earlier than anticipated. "It was
actually a surprise because we were expecting it sometime
this summer. It's just in time for spring, Kowalski said.
The company's investment in
the federal registration process approached $500,000, Matt
Kowalski said. We paid for everything on cash flow, which
was a big testament to the product. We were able to generate
sales to not only sustain the company, pay employees and
satisfy investors, but also to pay for our registration,
which is very expensive. It was pretty nerve-wracking
through the years."
"The real key was EPA
registration because of the inability to really talk about
its biocontrol abilities when you can only sell it as a soil
amendment," Crawford said.
When his father first traveled
to the University of Idaho, his interest was in using
microbes to cleanup contaminated industrial sites. His
interest shifted to an agricultural product after visiting
UI.
Kowalski's and Crawford's
faith in the bacteria's ability to combat fungi led to early
seed and soil inoculants that were based on tests that
showed plants grew better with help from the bacterium. But
the company and its distributors could not talk about the
bacterium's abilities as a pesticide without violating
federal law. Extensive testing and review are required by
EPA to ensure the environmental, consumer and worker safety
of pesticides.
The specific strain that
Crawford isolated and patented with graduate student
Hyung-Won Suh in 1995 is known as Streptomyces lydicus
WYEC108. The strain caught their attention because it
enhanced plant growth when added to soil and fought common,
economically damaging fungal diseases of plants.
Fungicides, pesticides that
target fungi, tend to be toxic to animals because fungal
cells are closer to plants and animals than to bacteria,
Crawford said. That is the advantage of enlisting bacteria
to provide protection to plants' roots at the cellular
level, serving as factories to apply microdoses of fungicide
where they count the most.
The quest to develop the new
pesticide will be featured in the Society of Industrial
Microbiology News in an article by Crawford, Kowalski, and
other principles including Mark Roberts, the chief operating
officer of Innovative BioSystems in Moscow; .Gene Merrell,
UI associate vice president for research and chief
technology transfer officer; and Lee A. Deobald, UI research
associate scientist.
Now Crawford is studying
bacteria found among sagebrush roots as sources of new
medical antibiotics. Bacteria supply nearly two-thirds of
the antibiotics used by physicians but microbiologists have
barely scratched the surface in identifying potential
sources of new drugs.
He decided to look among
sagebrush roots for potential miracle drugs because the
plant is a common element of the western landscapes he
loves.
There's also a strong chance
that a plant able to survive some of the least hospitable
habitats has something a little extra working in its favor.
Crawford believes bacteria may help sagebrush thrive despite
the constant challenges of pathogens that defeat lesser
plants.
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