Contented crops produce bountiful yields. Stressed crops don’t. Michelle Leslie and her team at Elemental Enzymes work to reduce stress and keep crops happy, healthy and productive.

Leslie, research and development director of plant-directed biocontrol, and her fellow scientists study, develop and test natural compounds that can be turned into commercial products farmers can apply to grain, fruit, vegetable and nut crops, to counteract environmental stresses. Finding the right formulations is painstaking work, but the payoff is worth the wait.

When a stressor like drought comes along a plant shifts its focus to coping with the stress. That leaves the plant with insufficient energy and physiological resources to promote growth. Stress also leads to accumulation of harmful molecules in the plant that cause damage to its essential lipids, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins. The plant must then go about repairing the damage to resume growth.

That, however, doesn’t always work out. If growth is suspended long enough, the plant will be stunted. In agricultural crops that means lower yields, uneven ripening, reduced quality and, in grains, less protein. And for farmers, poorer productivity and profits.

Leslie and her colleagues mix and match naturally occurring, active organic compounds to find the right combination of stress-mitigating solutions – what Elemental refers to as “amplifiers.” Selected amplifiers are intended to do just that: amplify what mother nature provided. 

“Our amplifiers for stress mitigation are based on natural osmolytes, or what are called osmoprotectants,” Leslie says. “These are classes of organic molecules, or compounds, that are naturally produced by plants in small quantities. But here we are supplying them to the plant when they need them most.

“What these osmoprotectants do is help physically retain more water in the plant. They also help stabilize essential biomolecules – the lipids, the proteins, the DNA and RNA – so that the plant is protected from the damage associated with stress. That way the plant can divert resources from repair to growth, even when it’s experiencing a water-limiting or stress event.”

Extensive field testing is done to ensure the formulations the Elemental team comes up with are safe for crops, the environment and humans. If the compounds are found to be safe and effective they move on to commercial product development, where Elemental partners with agricultural product suppliers to get the stress-reduction chemistries to producers.

The osmoprotectant-based products can be applied to crops directly as foliar treatments. Leslie says her team has yet to find a crop that wouldn’t benefit.

“We are developing products that can be used on any crop globally,” she says. “With our commercial partner, we’re expanding now into crops like bananas in Central America, grapes and sugarcane in South America, and testing globally on row and specialty crops.”

Almond producers are especially interested in Elemental’s work. Severe drought in California is threatening the state’s $6 billion industry. For the first time in history, the almond industry is shrinking rather than growing.

Elemental began field tests of its stress-mitigation compounds in almond groves in 2021.

“We’ve made applications during really important developmental periods of growth in trees – bloom and pollination – and also during kernel fill, a time when nut development is very sensitive to heat and drought,” Leslie says. “What we’re finding is that 2-3 applications of our product on trees are helping preserve yields. Compared to those trees that haven’t been treated, we’re getting a 20 percent yield increase with our drought protection product.”

Leslie says there are still discoveries to be made within stress-mitigation technology, and Elemental plans to keep pushing forward to find them. The goal is to continue to harness what nature already offers and amplify it through products that can be used alongside farmers’ traditional crop management programs.

“We look for compatibility with foliar-applied herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, so that the grower can be confident about using it and putting it into their standard program,” she says. “We’re not looking to replace the products they’re using, but instead add an additional tool for stress mitigation which they don’t currently have.

“We can’t make stress go away, but we can give a plant the tools it needs in order to better cope.”

And, in turn, keep it happy and growing.