A small agricultural business based in a few modest sized industrial units at Richmond on Sydney’s north-western outskirts has virtually stolen the market for control of heliothis caterpillar in Australian sorghum crops.
It has done it with the virus-based product, Vivus Max, and is the only company in Australia that makes species-specific virus based insecticides.
Ag Biotech Australia has marketed Vivus Max for the past seven years and it is now widely used in sorghum crops and in horticultural crops such as sweet corn, strawberries, beans, tomatoes and lettuce.
It is sprayed onto a crop in the same way as conventional pesticides.
The product features an insect virus (nucleopolyhedrovirus or NPV) identified by a researcher for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries (DPI), which attacks only the heliothis caterpillar, leaving beneficial and non-target insects unharmed.
Full story in The Land January 7.
Email a friend