SafeWax

Sustainable Bioinspired Wax Coating for Multi-Functional Crop Protection

Abstract

According to the FAO, plant diseases cost the global economy around 210€ billion per year, and fungal pathogens destroy at least a third of all food crops annually. Commercial agriculture relies on chemical fungicides for crop protection owing to their easy application and low cost; however, their overuse and misuse have devastating implications for all living systems and the entire ecosystem. Thus, establishing sustainable crop protection strategies is essential for global economic development, environmental protection, and food security. Inspired by superhydrophobic plants, such as lotus and broccoli which exhibit wax crystals on their cuticles, we propose a generic sustainable strategy for passive crop protection against fungal pathogens. Our biomimetic technology, termed SafeWax, relies on bioderived non-toxic fatty acid-based sprayable formulations which self-assemble into a multifaceted protective coating with antiadhesive, self-cleaning and antifungal properties. When applied on sensitive crops, which do not naturally exhibit wax crystals, SafeWax will synthetically render their foliage to passively resist pathogens. SafeWax concepts will initially be demonstrated on grapevine, as a relevant model crop of high importance to Europe’s economy, environment and culture, which is highly susceptible to fungal diseases and is the most-frequently treated crop. SafeWax will then be expanded to other sensitive commodity crops. The biodegradable SafeWax coating will not only protect crops from fungal infections but will also be tuned to provide UV radiation filtering, prevent sun damage, as well as facilitate water collection from dew condensation, mitigating inevitable effects of climate change. SafeWax will revolutionize the global fungicides market (valued > 20 billion €), starting from the biofungicide market with a value of 3,2 billion € by 2025.

Project details

Unibo Team Leader: Claudio Ratti

Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-Alimentari
Dipartimento di Chimica "Giacomo Ciamician"

Coordinator:
Technion-Israel Institute Of Technology(Israel)

Other Participants:
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - Università di Bologna (Italy)

Total Eu Contribution: Euro (EUR) 2.868.446,25
Project Duration in months: 48
Start Date: 01/03/2023
End Date: 28/02/2027

Cordis webpage

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101099462 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101099462