Bridging the Gap from Lab to Field: Scalable Conidial Biopesticide Production with Mycotec^®

Mara Kraft, Process Engineer at Evologic Technologies

As modern agriculture strives to feed more people sustainably, biocontrol solutions are harboring more interest from the scientific community and industry alike. Numerous prospective organisms have been screened and massive efforts have been made to bring novel products to market; however, with highly variable outcomes. While Bacillus-based products currently dominate the biocontrol market, other organisms are struggling to achieve the same level of success. The bottleneck? Scalable production.

Among the most promising biocontrol candidates are fungal-based conidial biopesticides, offering a wide palette of biocontrol solutions. They bring targeted pest control mechanisms that align with the goals of modern farming – efficacy, minimal residue, and minimal negative effects on non-target organisms. However, despite mounting scientifically validated data on fungal strains with biopesticidal properties, only a fraction of those organisms makes it from lab benches to commercial fields.

Fungi like Beauveria, Trichoderma, and Lecanicillium have shown powerful efficacy against a range of agricultural pests, but scaling their conidia propagation them up for industrial application has proven difficult due to subpar production technologies. The current industry standard is solid-state fermentation (SSF), which suffers from a host of challenges – contamination risks, poor reproducibility, and difficulties in downstream processing. These hurdles not only increase production costs but also undermine the reliability and shelf life of the final product. Additionally, SSF can produce only a limited number of fungal organisms at scale, rendering many prospective species unculturable from an industrial perspective and blocking their route to market.

The Hidden Potential of Conidial Biopesticides

Conidial spores, reproductive units of filamentous fungi, are known for their ability to infect and kill target pests through unique modes of action. Unlike chemical pesticides, they typically don't contribute to the emergence of resistant organisms and are often specific to target organisms, reducing the risk of off-target effects. With over 500 fungi species reported to have bioinsecticidal properties and more than 80 showing bioherbicidal potential, the natural world holds vast untapped resources for sustainable pest management.

And yet, fewer than 50 conidial-based biopesticide products are commercially available today, and most come from the same handful of species. The origin of this gap isn't the inability of fungi to deliver desired effects and perform robustly – it is the inability to manufacture these organisms at the necessary scale, cost, and quality.

A Scalable Breakthrough: Mycotec^®'s Biopolymer-Based Platform

Evologic has developed a groundbreaking manufacturing platform – Mycotec^® – that replaces the substrate used in traditional solid-state fermentation with a sterile, flexible biopolymer carrier, designed to support high-yield fungal growth in a fully controlled bioreactor environment. By moving away from organic solid substrates, which are prone to contamination and variability, Mycotec®'s process eliminates many of the pitfalls that plague conventional fungal production systems.

Evologic’s custom-designed bioreactors are tailored for conidial production, enabling fine-tuned control over temperature, humidity, oxygen levels, and nutrient flow. This leads to:

• Consistent and pure conidia output

• Reduced contamination risks

• Enhanced reproducibility across batches

• Flexibility in downstream formulation

The ability to produce large quantities of high-quality fungal conidia in a single, scalable process drastically reduces manufacturing costs – the most critical factor for market viability. 

From Discovery to Deployment: Accelerating Biocontrol Development

Mycotec^®’s platform doesn’t just improve production and yields pharma-quality products, it accelerates commercialization timelines, making fungal biocontrol agents more competitive.

Historically, bringing a new biocontrol agent to market could take years, largely due to challenges in scaling up production and ensuring product consistency. With Evologic’s manufacturing platform, fungi that previously yielded poorly in SSF environments (e.g. Lecanicillium species or non-domesticated Trichoderma strains), can now be cultivated reliably and efficiently. This enables biocontrol developers to focus on field efficacy, registration, and go-to-market strategies instead of battling production setbacks.

Pilot-scale demonstrations have shown that Mycotec yields more than 8 times greater spore concentration compared to SSF.

Figure 1. Spore concentration in the end product - Mycotec^® vs SSF.

These advancements are not just technical milestones – they are also pivotal in making fungal biopesticides a realistic and competitive alternative to synthetic chemicals.

Bridging the Lab-to-Field Gap: Real-World Applications

Mycotec^® allows early-stage biocontrol developers, research institutions, and agribusinesses to bridge the critical ″lab-to-field″ gap. Whether you're developing a new strain for a niche pest or working to scale a known organism for broader agricultural use, Evologic’s platform is designed to streamline the journey from lab validation to full-scale production. Better production technologies don’t just save time or costs, but that they also open doors for biocontrol products that were previously shelved due to poor scalability.

Figure 2. Fungal organisms tested with Mycotec^®.

A Necessity for the Future of Crop Protection

The agricultural industry is at a turning point. As chemical options dwindle and climate change pressure is rising, the demand for sustainable, bio-based crop protection solutions will only accelerate. In this context, scalable production of conidial biopesticides is more than a technical ambition – it’s a fundamental requirement.

With Mycotec^®, Evologic is setting a new standard in fungal biopesticide manufacturing. Their mission is to empower the next generation of biocontrol developers with the tools they need to bring impactful, field-ready products to market – faster, cheaper, and with greater confidence.

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This article will be published in the magazine of 2025 Biologicals Special. Follow this magazine to read more articles/stories.