Marrone Bio Innovations Sponsors Biopesticide Roundtable Hosted by Association of Applied IPM Ecologists

DAVIS, Calif., Dec. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of an ongoing educational outreach effort, Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI) today sponsored a Biopesticide Roundtable at the University of California, Davis, examining the importance of biopesticides as effective tools in integrated pest management (IPM) programs. The interactive roundtable, hosted by the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists, featured university and industry experts who discussed the benefits of biopesticide use on grape, stone fruit, walnut and other important agricultural crops.

"Biopesticides offer an effective and environmentally safe option for managing agricultural crops and are rapidly being adopted in both conventional and organic crop management," said MBI CEO Pam Marrone, Ph.D. "In the future, we expect more biopesticides to be approved for pest management than synthetic chemicals, as the cost and time to develop new synthetic chemical treatments far surpasses that of developing natural products, and as more growers become aware of their benefits."

The rapid growth in biopesticide adoption is being fueled by the ability of biopesticides to significantly increase yield and quality compared to chemical-only programs, as well as their important role in managing residues and the growing problem of pest resistance. Additionally, natural products are gentle to the environment, safer to workers and can be used in organic farming. Biopesticides may be used along with chemical treatments or on their own.

"We've learned a lot about how biopesticides work best," Marrone said. "Biopesticides are optimum for use in resistance management, in tank mixes, early in the season for low pest pressure and late in the season, or pre-harvest, to manage residues for export. They can also be used during critical field events and to save labor costs due to short re-entry intervals."

Featured speakers on the roundtable included Marrone, founder and CEO of MBI; W. Douglas Gubler, Ph.D., a UC Davis faculty member and an esteemed academic in the field of plant pathology; Eric Flora, west coast manager at Pacific Agricultural Research, an independent agricultural contract research organization based in California and Florida; Bob Lovatt, national organic products manager at Helena Chemical; and Chris Greer, farm advisor at the University of California Cooperative Extension of Sutter, Yuba and Colusa counties.

AAIE was established in 1967 to allow practitioners of IPM to exchange philosophical ideas and technical information. Today, AAIE's 200-plus members lead the development, adoption and implementation of IPM. AAIE has been hosting roundtable discussions for more than 40 years throughout California on the topics of IPM and responsible pest management. IPM practices integrate the use of natural predators, economic thresholds, crop monitoring and cultural practices with or without the use of pesticides. The result of a successful IPM program is effective pest control with a minimum impact to the environment, crop or people.

Participants from throughout the industry attended the Biopesticide Roundtable. The crop advisors and pesticide regulators who attended the event qualify for continuing education units from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.   

About Marrone Bio Innovations

Marrone Bio Innovations Inc. is a leading global provider of natural products for the agricultural and water treatment markets. Its effective and environmentally friendly natural agricultural products provide higher yields and quality while managing pesticide resistance and residues. Through its proprietary discovery and development platform and strategically in-licensed technologies, MBI has developed a pipeline of advanced and early-stage productsfor the significant agricultural and water treatment markets. MBI is selling its award-winning Regalia^® biofungicide in the U.S. and other countries, and is addressing the water market with Zequanox™ for controlling invasive aquatic mussels in fresh waterways. MBI currently has three dozen patents pending in the U.S. and globally.

SOURCE Marrone Bio Innovations Inc.