Expert warns that water stress is more harmful than pests in crops

Water stress is much more harmful than disease or insects. The assessment was made by DunhamTrimmer CEO, Mark Trimmer, during an Elicit Plant event in France. At a time when dry periods are becoming increasingly frequent and pronounced, he guarantees that technologies must advance in a field where little is yet explored.

According to Trimmer, if the reasons for yield losses in agricultural crops are analyzed, it will be seen that abiotic stress has a much greater impact than pests, weeds or fungal diseases. However, biotic stresses are responsible for most agricultural R&D. This raises the question of why the plant protection sector is not focusing more on abiotic stress factors and how to reduce them. “With the exception of a few innovative companies in the field of biostimulants or plant breeding, no one really focuses on this area,” says the expert.

The CEO of DunhamTrimmer, the first North American company to focus exclusively on natural crop protection products, highlighted that droughts are no longer concentrated in the southern states of the North American continent. He recalled that in 2023, the Midwest, Iowa and Minnesota were particularly affected by water shortages. More than 30 million acres in the United States have suffered yield losses, and 8 million of those acres qualified for crop insurance payments at an estimated cost of $7,4 billion. Two years earlier, the entire west of the continent was affected, with major consequences for production.

Trimmer explained that in South America the entire Prata basin experienced its worst drought in 75 years. In Brazil, the agricultural production index would have fallen 5,2% at the beginning of 2022 due to lower production of corn and soybeans. "Drought-related productivity losses had a six billion euro impact on the Brazilian economy, and this probably drastically underestimates an event of this size," she noted.

For the expert, although irrigation and variety selection are still the most used practices in the United States, 30% of producers use biostimulants. "They are one of the few mitigation measures that can be applied as a preventative response, but they are still largely ineffective. None of them actually target water stress," he highlighted. Trimmer emphasized that this is where Elicit Plant and its phytosterol-based solutions have a role to play, as they fall into a completely new category and deliver impressive results.

The expert cited the North American Midwest as an example, where the average corn productivity is around 12,5 kilos per hectare, compared to 10,9 kilos per hectare in the case of drought. While the use of a conventional biostimulant can yield up to 550 kilos per hectare, the Elicit Plant solution achieves twice that, that is, more than a thousand kilos. This potential has already been identified by distributors, but has not yet been adopted by producers. Trimmer concluded by highlighting the need for producer education about the value of these products and how to use them successfully.