Just a couple months ago, Bayer announced what it says is the first novel mode of action for controlling weeds in more than three decades.
The primary purpose of icafolin-methyl is “to bring back the controls that the farmers had at the beginning with glyphosate, and to really complement glyphosate’s efficacy,” Bayer Crop Science’s Dr. Volker Kuehnhold told AgFunderNews.
The announcement of a new novel mode of action comes at a time when weed resistance is top of mind for just about everyone involved in growing food, from farmers to agribusinesses to startups.
Designed to work in tandem with glyphosate (as opposed to replacing it), icafolin “belongs to a new chemical class providing unique properties that allow for lower dose rates and more targeted applications, and is expected to demonstrate an exceptional safety and sustainability profile,” according to Bayer.
Bayer has already submitted registration applications for icafolin-methyl in the European Union, Brazil, the US, and Canada. The company expects a launch in 2028 starting in Brazil.
Dr. Kuehnhold and Bayer colleague Dr. Jens Ackerstaff took time recently to explain more about what icafolin does, why it’s important, and where it fits into Bayer’s overall strategy.
AgFunderNews (AFN): First thing’s first: how does icafolin work, and does it replace glyphosate?
Dr. Volker Kuehnhold (VK): It’s not a replacement of glyphosate, it’s rather a completion of glyphosate. In most cases it will be combined with glyphosate in a sprayer. That’s the basic approach.
Another approach we have in mind, and are investigating is also using a precision application [of icafolin], with a broadcast application of glyphosate at the beginning, and then coming in with targeted application equipment later on to apply icafolin to just the spots that survived.
That approach is not in the market today but will likely increase in the future.
AFN: Why do we need new modes of action for herbicides?
Dr. Jens Ackerstaff (JA): It’s generally becoming more difficult to control weeds and that’s why we need to do it differently.
VK: We have increasing resistance challenges all over the globe. That’s really a huge issue for the farmers, especially in Brazil and the US, because this endangers a no-till system approach. And the no-till system has huge environmental benefits and is super efficient for farmers.
So that’s the primary focus of icafolin: to bring back the controls that the farmers had at the beginning with glyphosate, and to really complement glyphosate’s efficacy.
AFN: How does icafolin actually work?
VK: The weeds are frozen.
With a glyphosate or glufosinate treatment, the weeds die off and disappear within a couple of days. With icafolin, that’s not so much the case. The plants are staying green for a longer period and will stay on the field.
We have to explain to farmers that this is not an issue because the plants are actually dead. They’re not competing for resources with the crop anymore, but they’re still standing in the field, decaying much slower.
We see various advantages in this. First, the leftover weeds act as a mulch layer that actually prevents other weeds from re-emerging. And if you compare glyphosate to icafolin side by side, you very clearly see this. With glyphosate, the field was clean right after spraying, then after two to three weeks, weeds emerged once more.
With icafolin, we don’t have this because we have this mulch layer biomass.
Also, this mulch layer might also actually prevent soil erosion due to rain or wind, and might even help to retain some water in the ground. So that’s a very positive thing, and we think that this in combination with a no-till or reduced tillage approach really shows that this is fitting very well in the Bayer strategy of advancing technology that enables regenerative agriculture.
AFN: Will icafolin eventually succumb to some weed resistance the way glyphosate has?
VK: Nature will always win.
But let me add to this. Glyphosate was a building block of herbicide strategies for decades, and it was so effective, it was also holding back resistance from other molecules.
What we see now is that some weeds that are resistant to glyphosate build up resistance to other modes of actions even faster.
So this resistance is a little bit like the dam breaking, and you have more pressure on the other molecules.
JA: You cannot engineer future resistance out of weeds. But you can develop a good regime around using products wisely.
For us, it’s super important to provide the farmers the tools on hand to use the remaining weapons in the right way and prevent overly fast resistance evolution, because in the end, if we have such solutions in the market, we want them to be useful for as long as possible.
AFN: Given ongoing controversy over glyphosate, how is Bayer addressing the safety aspect of icafolin?
VK: We have the regulatory properties that are super clean, but to be honest, they are also super clean for glyphosate.
JA: We’ve not only optimized Ifacolin towards being efficacious, but also to fulfill all other criteria of modern crop protection products including today’s regulatory criteria . So far it has met all of the hurdles, which is a big testament to the success of our scientists as well as our new approach we call “CropKey.”
AFN: What is the expected regulatory timeline?
VK: It’s progressing quicker than we thought.
We submitted ahead of timelines to bring the data to the authorities. In the past, we had up to six, seven years registration timeline in Brazil. Now we’re down to two years. We may even get the registration at the beginning of 2027 so that we can actually do a launch campaign in 2028.
We also submitted [regulatory applications] in the European Union, which for us is the highest level of regulatory requirement.
JA: Around the globe, [the timelines for] registrations and authorizations are not exactly the same, but people are realizing there is a clear need for new solutions in general.
There’s not only weed resistance, practices in agriculture have changed too. And you want to have precise solutions to not only give new tools to the farmer, but also to optimize for the environmental impact you’re creating.
And there is actual interest to bring them faster to the market, because these solutions are lacking in many places.
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