PLATTEVILLE, Wis. – Dr. Muthu Venkateshwaran, an assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s School of Agriculture, was recently awarded an Applied Research Grant from the WiSys Technology Foundation, totaling more than $46,000. The grant will support his development of natural and safe pesticides as novel alternatives for sustainable plant disease management.
According to Venkateshwaran, each year Wisconsin farmers spend up to $22.4 million on fungicide for disease management, and yet, up to 20% of crop loss is due to plant diseases, with an additional 10% loss due to post harvest diseases. This is partially caused by the emergence of resistant strains of pathogens, which is why Venkateshwaran is researching the use of natural pesticides produced by plants, such as plant-derived essential oils.
“Essential oils are already available and commercially used, but we want to increase their efficiency and applicability,” said Venkateshwaran. He explained that applying essential oils in traditional agriculture is challenging as many of them have low water solubility, making it more difficult to dilute to the recommended dosage to apply on plants without the help of additional surfactants, and some of them are volatile in nature, meaning they are quick to evaporate when used in the field and not readily absorbed and translocated within the plants for systemic control of plant pathogens.
Therefore, in collaboration with Dr. Raja Annamalai, associate professor of chemistry at UW-Platteville, Venkateshwaran hopes to identify the active components of these essential oils and develop natural chemical derivatives to produce novel compounds, or modified essential oils. The researchers hypothesize that these modified compounds will have enhanced antimicrobial activities against bacterial and fungal pathogens as well as increased water solubility, higher permeability through plant membranes and lower volatility, making them easier and safer for use in agricultural production and the environment.
Venkateshwaran said that he sees a growing demand for natural alternatives to pesticides – especially in Wisconsin which has a large number of organic farms. “There are a lot of companies that are making essential oil-based fungicides and insecticides for pest management,” he said. “We could potentially talk to those companies to sell our products or collaborate with them to market our products.”
His research will focus on the efficacy of the modified essential oils in the control of three major soybean diseases found in Wisconsin – two of which are fungal diseases, sclerotinia stem rot and brown stem rot, and one bacterial disease – bacterial blight of soybean. Beyond organic farm operations, Venkateshwaran believes that there could be broad interest in a solution like this from large conventional farms to the home gardeners, and it could have a significant impact on the state of Wisconsin’s economy. “We wanted to test the effect of our products on diseases of importance to Wisconsin, which is why we chose those that affect soybeans,” said Venkateshwaran.
Venkateshwaran will have undergraduate students assist with the research – likely at least a dozen – throughout the span of the project. He said the benefits students receive are twofold. “Students get to contribute to a challenge we face with respect to plant disease management in Wisconsin, but they also get the undergraduate training and research experience, providing them the skills to frame such questions and design the experiments. They are involved in all the aspects of research,” said Venkateshwaran.
This research is supported by WiSys Technology Foundation and UW System applied research funding programs. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of WiSys or UW System.