A Northamptonshire-based company is about to revolutionise the way farmers protect their crops from pests. The team at Help! Biocontrol are using living organisms to effectively replace the need for bee killing pesticides. The bugs in Help!’s products eat up the three major pests of the horticulture industry ‘spider mites’, thrips’, and ‘fungus gnats’. These predator bugs are termed ‘biological control agents’ (biocontrol).
The use of such biocontrol bugs to control plant pests is nothing new, in fact it is already a multi-billion-pound industry. Help! products are groundbreaking because they deliver multiple species of predators to growers to get complete control over a single specific pest. Each bug targets a different phase of the pest’s life cycle and a different part of the crop.
Company Director, plant scientist Dr Russell Sharp has high hopes for the new ‘Help! Biocontrol’ range of products, “I am so proud of all we have already achieved since setting up HELP! only a few years ago and we are excited to be the only UK-based producer of this exciting new biotechnology. It is now time to showcase this technology to a global audience.”
HELP! recently showcased their technology at the premier global horticulture trade show; Greentech Amsterdam.
