STTR Phase I: Nanocellulose-based Adjuvant for Reducing Herbicide Drift

The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project is in addressing the pressing problem of herbicide drift. For years, farmers growing organic, non-genetically modified (non-GM) and specialty crops have incurred crop damage and financial losses due to drift of volatile herbicides, such as dicamba. The EPA estimates that up to 70 million pounds of pesticides, including herbicides, are lost to the environment due to drift each year. In 2017 alone, 3.6 million acres of soybeans were destroyed due to dicamba drifting away from its site of application. This project addresses the problem with a novel technology that reduces herbicide volatility and drift. This technology will help farmers growing GM-crops who face litigation because they spray drifting dicamba, and those who grow non-GM-crops and do not want drifted dicamba to impact their produce. Agrochemical companies currently facing EPA restrictions, product bans, and billions of dollars in lawsuits, can use this technology to improve the application efficiency of their products. This technology offers significant environmental benefits. Furthermore, beyond its agricultural use, the bio-based formulation is a platform technology that may be used to develop other applications from food to pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. The innovation proposed in this STTR Phase I project is a bio-based emulsion adjuvant, derived from renewable resources, with the combined functionality of a drift control agent, buffering agent, and surfactant, to reduce the volatility and off-target movement of herbicides, and improve their efficacy. The proposed adjuvant offers encapsulating, environmental and financial benefits relative to the state of practice. The project has the following objectives to evaluate and demonstrate the technical feasibility of the innovation: 1) develop and optimize the composition of the formulation, 2) characterize properties important for its use in herbicide spray mixtures, such as surface tension, thermal stability, fluid flow, water conditioning and defoaming behavior, 3) conduct humidome tests and field trials to validate the effectiveness of the formulation with respect to fine spray droplets suspended in the air and herbicide activity against pigweed (Palmer amaranth), using dicamba as the model herbicide, and 4) determine the biodegradability profile of the formulation in soil and water environments and its aquatic toxicity. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.