Covid-19 Recovery: Optimising routes for scaled-up production of high value pear midge pheromones

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The COVID-19 global pandemic has affected UK R&D in the manufacture of speciality chemicals using sustainable green chemistry routes (produced adhering to the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry), including pheromones that are used to manage insect pests affecting UK food production systems. The pandemic has delayed, by several months, PheroSyn's proposed R&D activity on developing routes for commercial scale production of midge pheromones where the company was poised to begin developing sustainable and green chemistry routes for midge pheromone production. It is now imperative for the company to drive forward this new innovation of supplying the high-value, not currently available midge pheromones for pest management. Not only will this provide a positive climate impact through reduced pesticide production that use fossil-fuel based feedstocks, but it will also provide sustainable and climate-friendly management of pests through IPM based strategies.Midges are small (ca. 3mm long), fragile flying insects that affect a variety of crops and are a significant global pest of arable and horticultural food production. Midge management is a potentially lucrative and growing market in the pest management industry globally, including in the UK, the EU region, North America and South America, where midge problems are well established. Management of midges is problematic; their life-cycles mean that grains and fruits can be potentially exposed to pesticides which subsequently enter the human and animal food chain. Furthermore, there is a global trend to move away from reliance on chemical pesticides in food production in favour of integrated pest management (IPM) strategies. The need for IPM strategies is also driven by loss in efficacy of pesticides, pesticide availability due to legislative regulation, and environmental issues associated with pesticide use. Pheromones form a critical component of IPM strategies, but, compared to other crop pests, there are virtually no midge sex pheromones currently available on the market.PheroSyn already has market-ready midge pheromones in its current portfolio but there is an opportunity to expand this portfolio by developing further new not-currently available midge pheromones into effective commercial products. PheroSyn aims at commercialising insect sex pheromones for sale into the established agribusiness sector, and to capitalise on expertise in novel methods for monitoring and control of a wide range of crop pests important to crop health and production.The objective of this 6-month experimental development project is for PheroSyn to optimise green chemistry routes for the production of two high-value midge pheromones, to be used in midge-specific traps that are capable of detecting early stage infestations of midges in crops. Optimisation of the routes will enable PheroSyn to accelerate business growth, supplying effective, sensitive, long-lasting, safe, affordable and discrete tools to farmers and growers on a global scale.PheroSyn's optimisation of midge pheromone production will be underpinned by the company founders' technical know-how. The PheroSyn team has a combined 40+ years of experience in pest pheromone R&D and pheromone chemistry.