Attune Agriculture is expanding its portfolio of hydrocolloid-based products with Horizon A, a soil-applied adjuvant that improves moisture and active ingredient retention in the plant’s root zone, representatives told AgTechNavigator.
Available in most U.S. states, Horizon A reduces evaporation loss and prevents water and actives from moving past a plant’s root zone, the company shared in a release. Adjuvants are a class of crop inputs that improve the efficiency of applications, like fertilisers or herbicides.
Horizon A increases whitefly control by 300% and pre-emergent weeds by 80%, and reduces nematodes and phytophthora disease severity by 56.6% and 82.4%, respectively, the company stated. Additionally, a test of the adjuvant increased potato yields by 29.3% and total solids by 17.8%.
Horizon A can be used in conjunction with nutrient and crop protection programmes and requires multiple in-season applications to maximise benefits, at a usage rate of 16-128 oz. per acre for irrigation, chemigation, or fertigation, or 1/2 pint to 4 quarts per 100 gallons for broadcast application.
“It is a lot like adding organic matter to a soil. When you add organic matter, you add water-holding capacity. Well, when we add Horizon A, we are adding water-holding capacity. Pure blow sand does not have any water-holding capacity, but I could make some water-holding capacity,” said Travis Kidd, project lead and field development manager at Attune.
Improving active efficiency, water management with adjuvants
After working with hydrocolloids in the food industry, Attune’s CEO, Greg Andon, found an application for the long-chain polymers in the agriculture sector. Many available adjuvants are surfactant-based, which can drive nutrients and water down past the root zone and reduce surface tension, Andon explained.
“By reducing surface tension, you are creating small droplets. When those droplets were hitting the leaf — because of that reduction in surface tension — a lot of them were just rolling off the leaf, ... or they are shattering, and you were not getting the volume into the plant,” Andon elaborated.
Horizon A not only improves active efficiency, but the product can help farmers improve their water management practices at a time when water rights and quantity issues are rampant, Kidd explained. “Water is one of the biggest issues in common agriculture,” he emphasised.
“This is a technology that we could potentially use to build up that moisture retention over time, and then we could potentially skip a watering,” Kidd elaborated.
Attune R&D to focus on actives
Looking ahead, Attune is working on expanding its portfolio further, as the company builds out its vision of being “a complete crop input company,” Kidd explained. Last year, Attune released its first insecticide, Entrapment, which uses three modes of action to protect plants from insects and mites, the company shared.
“There are other classes of actives that we are deep in the R&D for right now. Of course, regulatory always takes a while, but hopefully within two years or so, we will be ... announcing a whole new class of actives,” Andon noted.
