Plant Health Care announces agreement with MANA Crop Protection

Plant Health Care, a leading provider of naturally derived products to the agriculture industry, announces that it has signed an agreement with MANA Crop Protection (MANA), to combine PHC’s dry formulated Harpin αβ protein technology for use as a foliar spray in corn, soybeans, and dry beans with select MANA technologies in the USA. In 2012, MANA and PHC will test market combinations of PHC’s yield enhancing Harpin protein technology with MANA’s Bumper® and Incognito® foliar fungicides. This program follows the same model that will result in an estimated three million acres of soybeans being treated with Harpin seed treatment in 2012. Financial terms of the agreement are confidential.

In 2011, the US-foliar corn fungicide market exceeded $135 Million in grower value. More than 80% of expenditures were strobilurin-based fungicides, yet the crop protection industry’s Fungicide Resistance Action Committee has classified strobilurin fungicides as high risk for developing fungal resistance. The use of Harpin protein in combination with non-strobilurin-based fungicides mitigates the development of strobilurin-based fungicide resistance, and represents a new opportunity to be an effective replacement in situations where popular strobilurin-based fungicides may no longer be effective.

In direct comparison across multiple, commercial-scale farm trials that were set-up and managed by the Iowa Soybean Association’s On-Farm Network in 2011, a harpin-propiconazole combination produced higher average yields than the market-leading strobilurin-based fungicides. These foliar Harpin/fungicide on-farm trials are consistent with 3 years of PHC-managed replicated evaluations in which Harpin recorded higher yields and a higher percentage of wins than the non-Harpin treated comparison blocks.

According to John Brady, CEO, PHC, “We’re very excited to work with a company of the caliber of MANA Crop Protection. The three years of field results achieved in corn with Harpin plus fungicides led to our test marketing agreement with MANA, and validates our beliefs that Harpin can be used effectively to improve the performance of foliar fungicides in these crops. Makhteshim Agan Industries, MANA’s parent company, is the largest manufacturer and seller of post-patent crop protection chemicals in the world and we are discussing additional opportunities and crop segments to combine MANA technologies, such as the fungicide thiophanate methyl, with our Harpin technology.

"MANA Crop Protection’s leading goal is to provide producers with high-value, innovative products that improve their bottom line while encouraging them to adopt technologies that manage resistance,” said Keith Miller, MANA’s Innovation Product Leader. “We believe PHC’s Harpin, in combination with proven fungicides like Bumper® or Incognito®, will meet both objectives.”