As the world’s leading producers of potatoes, China and India are at the leading frontier of CPB spread as it expands its range eastward

Renaissance BioScience Corp’s RNA-based biopesticide technology conducted on Colorado potato beetle (CPB) larvae resulted in 98.3 per cent mortality and greatly reduced the amount of plant damage caused by the beetle.

The proof-of-concept test, conducted by a leading international agriculture consultancy with expertise in pesticide evaluation, applied Renaissance’s proprietary yeast-based RNA interference technology that is designed to precisely target and turn off a specific CPB gene. This, in turn, resulted in high CPB mortality and protected the potato plant. A key characteristic and industrial benefit of the Renaissance novel proprietary RNA production and oral delivery platform technology is that it’s possible to include multiple different gene targets in each cell of the delivery system, thereby greatly reducing or eliminating the potential for CPB to develop resistance to this innovative biopesticide.

The Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) is one of the most economically devastating pests facing potato crops in North America and Mexico, Europe, Russia and Eastern Europe, and in Asia, including in western and northeastern China. As the world’s leading producers of potatoes, China and India are at the leading frontier of CPB spread as it expands its range eastward. The CPB has a legendary ability to develop resistance to a wide range of chemical pesticides previously used in its control and a natural biopesticide solution is urgently needed to greatly reduce the widespread damage and major economic costs caused by this pest.