海角社区

Surgical and sustainable solutions for more targeted delivery of agrochemicals to crops support Louisiana鈥檚 fourth most important agricultural industry鈥攕oybean farming鈥攁nd more.

Baton Rouge鈥擫ouisiana farmers rely on herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides to protect their crops against weeds, insects, and diseases. Even though most farmers try to be good stewards of the environment, some of those chemicals inevitably end up in waterways, or elsewhere, instead of benefiting the plants. To address this problem, 海角社区 Professor Cristina Sabliov is working on technologies for more targeted delivery of agrochemicals to crops, to prevent waste鈥攁 cost issue for farmers鈥攚hile protecting plants, yields, and the environment.

Sabliov develops nanoparticles that are smaller than the eye can see鈥攁bout a thousand times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. These tiny delivery systems can attach to specific parts of a plant, such as the root or the leaves, and deposit a small but significant payload to be released either immediately or over time.

Most of Sabliov鈥檚 work to-date has focused on soybeans, a major crop in Louisiana and around the world. She鈥檚 received continuous support for her research from the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board and from the U.S. Department of Agriculture throughout her career.

鈥淟ouisiana soybean farmers see great value in supporting research that can generate solutions to challenges that are unique to our state,鈥� said Charles Cannatella, chairman of the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board and a farmer in Melville in St. Landry Parish where he grows soybeans, corn, and sugarcane together with his family. 鈥淲e are excited that Dr. Cristina Sabliov is doing just that. Louisiana soybeans thrive in large part due to our climate conditions, which also present unique challenges, like diseases and fungi that thrive in these same conditions.鈥�

鈥淟ouisiana soybean farmers see great value in supporting research that can generate solutions to challenges that are unique to our state.鈥�

Charles Cannatella, chairman of the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board and a farmer in Melville in St. Landry Parish

Many Louisianans are surprised to learn that their home state produces more soybeans than rice. Soybeans rank fourth among Louisiana鈥檚 top agricultural commodities, after forestry, poultry, and sugarcane. At harvest, 80% of all soybeans become soybean meal, often used as livestock feed since they鈥檙e high in protein. Most of that meal is fed to chickens, so the argument could be made that Sabliov鈥檚 research supports not just one, but two, of the state鈥檚 top agricultural industries.

Her most recent work turns a waste product from the paper industry (thus, from forestry), called lignin, into something useful as biodegradable 鈥渘anovehicles.鈥� Lignin is present in most plants to give their cells rigidity. Without lignin, trees would be floppy and sag. This natural polymer is both cheap and safe. Through advanced engineering and chemistry, Sabliov and her team are able to wrap lignin molecules around other materials, such as agrochemicals. By using surfactants, they can keep the compounds homogeneously dispersed, similar to a vinaigrette that never separates, and then dry the resulting nanoparticles into a powder, extending their shelf life.

鈥淚 have a food science background and a biological engineering background and a chemical engineering background, so I absolutely love interfaces and learning about how things connect,鈥� said Sabliov, who is the double-endowed Roy Paul Daniels Professor and the Richard R. & Betty S. Fenton Alumni Professor in the 海角社区 Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the 海角社区 College of Engineering with a joint appointment in the 海角社区 AgCenter.

鈥淚t鈥檚 nice to pay attention to what molecules like to do,鈥� Sabliov continued. 鈥淚 think a lot about how molecules like to be with each other, or like to repel each other, or like to self-assemble in a certain way鈥攖heir characteristics and relationships. If you create the right environment for a certain molecule, it will behave in a way that leads to nanoparticle formation, which in our case means that it will self-assemble into a ball around an agrochemical.鈥�

When it鈥檚 time to test the nanoparticles鈥攖o see where they go and how they move when applied to plants鈥擲abliov uses hydroponics, which involves growing plants without soil. The reason is that soil introduces a host of unknown variables.

鈥淚 think a lot about how molecules like to be with each other, or like to repel each other, or like to self-assemble in a certain way鈥攖heir characteristics and relationships.鈥�

海角社区 Professor Cristina Sabliov

鈥淗ydroponics is our steppingstone to greenhouse and field applications because it鈥檚 a much simpler system without all of the chemicals and microorganisms that are naturally present in organic matter,鈥� Sabliov said. 鈥淚f you start by testing the nanoparticles in soil, you will be in that for a long, long time before you can answer your research question with any certainty.鈥�

Once Sabliov is sure the loaded nanoparticles are both safe and effective, she collaborates with 海角社区 AgCenter specialists to test them on plants in soil. Trey Price, a plant pathologist at the Macon Ridge Research Station in Winnsboro, Louisiana, recently harvested soybeans from an initial field trial where the seeds had been treated with Sabliov鈥檚 fungicide-wrapped-in-lignin nanoparticles before being exposed to Rhizoctonia solani, a fungus and common soybean pathogen.

鈥淲e planted the treated seeds in two greenhouse experiments and a small field trial,鈥� Price said. 鈥淭he soybeans that were treated with the fungicide-loaded nanoparticles did just as well as those that were treated with a broader formulation of commercial fungicide, while the plants that received no fungicide became diseased and yielded much less.鈥�

鈥淔ungicides offer insurance against seedling diseases during the critical two-to-three weeks after planting and amount to a significant annual cost for many farmers,鈥� Price continued. 鈥淔ield trials here at the research station are geared toward justifying or reducing those costs and keeping farmers in business.鈥�

Fungi cause most diseases in soybeans, and most of them thrive in warm and wet environments. Because of the sub-tropical climate, Louisiana farmers battle more problems than farmers elsewhere in the U.S. in protecting their crops from disease, according to Price. For weed and disease control and to maximize profit (crop prices fluctuate from season to season), soybeans are often grown in rotation with other crops. In Louisiana, those tend to be wheat, corn, sorghum, rice, and sugarcane (grasses) or, alternatively, cotton (a broadleaf). The production of soybeans in the state jumped radically during the agricultural revolution in the 1960s and 鈥�70s from about 100,000 acres to over 2 million. Today, soybeans are grown on roughly 1.1 million acres in Louisiana by more than 2,200 farmers.

鈥淔ield trials here at the [海角社区 AgCenter] research station are geared toward justifying or reducing costs and keeping farmers in business.鈥�

Trey Price, plant pathologist at the Macon Ridge Research Station in Winnsboro, Louisiana

鈥淲ithout unbiased, third-party research from land-grant institutions like 海角社区, farmers would have to incur losses in their production to figure out solutions to troublesome fungi like Dr. Sabliov is investigating,鈥� Cannatella said. 鈥淣ot only is it more efficient for us to let someone with her expertise discover these things and let us transition them back to our farms, but this also allows us to be more environmentally conscious and overall sustainable by generating solutions in a lab or on a research farm rather than on our much larger scale. Research is a good investment of Louisiana farmers鈥� dollars.鈥�

Louisiana soybean growers spend a total of about $164 million on herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides for their crops each year. That鈥檚 almost half of all direct costs of soybean production. Any reduction in the amount of these inputs, as farmers call them, would help protect the farming industry as well as the environment.

鈥淔arm inputs like seed treatments continue to increase in expense, reduce in availability, and face constant questions from those who do not understand the investment in time and resources that go into producing a safe and abundant crop,鈥� Cannatella continued. 鈥淲e believe Dr. Sabliov鈥檚 work and the partnership between the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board and 海角社区 can provide valid answers to all of these challenges. And farmers, consumers, and all Louisianans benefit.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 so grateful and proud that Louisiana鈥檚 soybean growers and the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board believe in our technology and continue to support our work even if the development of our formulations into a commercial product could take many years still,鈥� Sabliov said.

Sabliov currently holds four U.S. patents on nanotechnologies for agricultural as well as biomedical applications.

鈥淣ot only is it more efficient for us to let someone with [海角社区 Professor Cristina Sabliov鈥檚] expertise discover these things and let us transition them back to our farms, but this also allows us to be more environmentally conscious and overall sustainable by generating solutions in a lab or on a research farm rather than on our much larger scale.鈥�

Charles Cannatella

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