Alltech acquires Spanish company Ideagro

Alltech Crop Science (Ultimately Alltech Inc.) acquired Ideagro, based in Murcia, Spain. The objective is to increase the supply of biological products and other microorganisms.

"We are excited to announce that Ideagro has joined the global Alltech Crop Science team, providing us with a partner who shares our vision and significantly scales our research capabilities," said Andy Thomas, CEO of Alltech Crop Science.

"This is the strengthening of a long-standing partnership." We have been working closely with the Ideagro team since its founding 11 years ago."

Ideagro works on agri-food research and development with a team of more than 20 scientists. Their expertise in developing beneficial soil organisms helps crop growth, reduces the impact of chemical inputs, and helps plants resist biotic and abiotic stress.

"We are facing a great growth opportunity for Ideagro because we will have better means and more technological capacity to develop our research, which will now have a global projection", said Pedro Palazón, CEO of Ideagro.

Ideagro has state-of-the-art laboratories and experimental research stations and fields to carry out trials in Spain. To date, the company has researched more than 90 different crops and carried out more than 10.000 physicochemical and biological analyzes. This has led to the development of new agricultural strategies based on microorganisms.

Its three laboratories work in:

• Accurate diagnoses, identification and semi-quantification of more than 290 microorganisms at species level in different crops. Through the development of multispecific detection kits, it can simultaneously detect up to 40 pathogenic microorganisms in a single sample, with results in 24-48 hours;

• Molecular identification of microorganisms, as well as genetic characterization of specific strains and determination of pathogenic pathogens;

• Nematode analysis;

• Design of specific probes for specific microorganisms. As a result, Ideagro is able to detect specific microorganisms in soil, water, plant material and biostimulants;

• Mycotoxin analysis. With more than 15.000 analyzes carried out to date, Ideagro can identify and quantify the risks of aflatoxin B1, fumonisins, zearalenone and deoxynivalenol trichothecenes and T2 toxin. It provides monthly data on mycotoxin contamination in animal feed and main crops in the Spanish and European markets.

Ideagro is accredited by MAPAMA (EOR 82/13) and has ISO 9001:2015 certification. In June 2021, it was named a Regional Reference Laboratory by GLOSOLAN, the Global Soil Laboratory division of FAO.