Key Takeaways
- Syngenta partnered with Swiss technology company Vivent Biosignals to develop electrophysiology technology that “listens” to plant electrical signals during pest attacks.
- The breakthrough technology can detect stink bug damage to soybean crops in real time, before visible damage appears, which typically takes up to a week.
- Research findings were published in Nature Scientific Reports, demonstrating how the technology works with Syngenta's VERDAVIS® crop protection product derived from PLINAZOLIN® technology.
- The Neotropical brown stink bug threatens soybean crops across Central and South America, contributing to an estimated 21 percent annual crop loss from pests and pathogens.
- Syngenta Fellow Anke Buchholz led the research team that used machine learning and AI to decode complex plant electrical signals for the first time.
Breakthrough in Plant Communication Technology Shared By Syngenta
Syngenta has developed innovative technology that allows scientists to “listen” to crops under attack from pests in real time. The breakthrough comes from an ongoing collaboration between Syngenta and Vivent Biosignals, a Swiss-based technology enterprise, with findings recently published in Nature Scientific Reports.
The technology harnesses plant electrophysiology by recording electrical signals that plant cells send out in response to environmental changes. This represents the fastest communication mechanism plants use between cells, tissues, and organs.
“The plant is communicating with ion fluxes and, in principle, we are listening from the outside. Using extracellular plant electrophysiology, we can hear what is going on in the plant,” said Anke Buchholz, Syngenta Fellow.
6 Comments