Woodland-based ag-tech startup Pheronym Inc. won a $1 million Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Science Foundation.
The money will be used to scale up commercial manufacturing of the company’s approach to pest control that doesn’t use chemical pesticides.
"After years of proving the efficacy of our patented approach, we are ready to take the final step in scaling production to make our solution commercially available," said Pheronym CEO Fatma Kaplan, in a news release.
The company is now testing scaled-up manufacturing at the Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Emeryville, Pheronym Chief Operating Officer Karl Schiller told the Business Journal.
The company has previously been awarded $1.1 million in NSF grants, and it's raised seed money from other sources and the Sacramento Angels.
Pheronym is based in Woodland at The Lab@AgStart. It has five employees. The company is developing biological controls to control pests in greenhouses and in fields, Schiller said.
Pheronym’s target market to start will be combating thrips, a pest that is a problem in agriculture globally and that has become resistant to chemical pesticides.
Thrips are tiny sucking insects that can cause damage to plants through their chewing and also by transmitting viruses and diseases between plants.
Beneficial nematodes have been used in agriculture for soil-born pests for decades.
Pheronym turbocharges the effectiveness of nematodes by controlling their behavior, making them more aggressive and more mobile using pheromones. Pheromones are naturally secreted chemicals from living organisms that affect behavior.
Pheronym developed a process of growing nematodes in liquid media that makes them secrete a pheromone. The company separates that out, and later uses those pheromones to control the nematodes.
Farmers add Pheronym’s pheromone product, called Nemastim, to nematodes right before mixing with water and applying it to the crop, either by the tanks they already use or through an existing irrigation system.
The nematodes infest the pest insects with bacteria that kills them.
Using the pheromone makes the beneficial nematodes 78% more effective, Schiller said.
The composite method of using nematodes with Nemastim kills thrips at the pupa stage.
"Our natural approach to pest control will be better for people and our planet," Kaplan said. "It's time to get it out in the field so it can make a real difference for farmers and consumers alike."
Launched in Davis in 2017, the company gained attention in 2019 for its “Nematodes in Space” project with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study the effects of zero gravity on nematodes aboard the International Space Station.
