HYDERABAD: Researchers from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) have developed a new method using nanotechnology for increasing the effectiveness of Harpin, a globally used biopesticide for preventing fungal, bacterial and viral infections in agricultural crops. Although Harpin is used widely, one of its drawbacks is that it does not effectively reach the right location in plants required for boosting their immunity - chloroplasts, which is located in the cells of green plants, when the biopesticide is sprayed upon.
However, the researchers found that when Harpin molecules are endcaps lated in Chitosan Nanoparticles(CSNP), to create the biopesticide ‘Harpin loaded CSNP’(H-CSNP), the H-CSNP had a five-fold increase in preventing microbial infections. Not just increasing effectiveness but they also found that the quantity of H-CSNP required for preventing infection was also less.
The team of UoH researchers who worked on it are Prof Appa Rao Podile, the Vice Chancellor of UoH, and Sandhya Rani Nadendla of Department of Plant Sciences. They used H-CSNP on Tomato plants for their study but now Prof Podile’s group has tied up with a private firm, Sri Bioaesthetics Pvt Ltd, to produce both Harpin and H-CSNPs on a pilot scale and test their efficiency in four different crops against various microbial diseases.