Nanotechnology is a boon for soybean growers as well as the environment

Louisiana farmers rely heavily on herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides to protect their crops from weeds, insects, and diseases. Despite farmers trying to be good stewards for the environment, some chemicals end-up in waterways and other places, rather than benefitting the plants. LSU Professor Cristina Sabliov works on technologies that can be used to target agrochemicals to crops. This will help to reduce waste, which is a problem for farmers, while protecting the environment, yields, plants, and the environment.

Sabliov has developed nanoparticles smaller than what the eye can see, about a thousandx smaller than the thickness a human hair. These tiny delivery systems attach to certain parts of plants such as the root and leaves and deposit a small but important payload to be released over time or immediately.

Sabliov’s research has mainly focused on soybeans, which are a major crop in Louisiana and all over the world. Throughout her career, she has received support from the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Louisiana soybean growers see great value in supporting research that can solve unique challenges,” said Charles Cannatella of the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board. He is a farmer in Melville, St. Landry Parish, where he grows soybeans and corn with his family. “We are delighted that Dr. Cristina Sabliov does just that. Louisiana soybeans thrive because of our climate conditions. These conditions also present unique challenges such as diseases and fungi.

Many Louisianans are surprised that their home state produces more soybeans than rice. After poultry, forestry and sugarcane soybeans are fourth among Louisiana’s most important agricultural commodities. Because it is high in protein, soybean meal is often used as livestock feed. At harvest, 80% all soybeans are converted to soybean meal. It is most commonly fed to chickens. This could mean that Sabliov’s research has supported not one, but two of the state’s top agricultural sectors.

Her recent work transformed lignin, a paper industry waste product, into something that can be used as biodegradable “nanovehicles.” Lignin, which is found in most plants, gives cells rigidity. Trees would be floppy and sag without lignin. This natural polymer is both safe and cheap. Sabliov and her colleagues are able to wrap lignin molecules with other materials, such agrochemicals, using advanced engineering and chemistry. Surfactants allow them to keep the compounds homogeneously distributed, similar to a vinaigrette, and then dry the resulting particles into a powder, which extends their shelf life.

“I have a food science and a biological engineering background and a chemicals engineering background so I absolutely love interfaces and learning how things connect,” said Sabliov. He is also the Roy Paul Daniels Professor and Richard R. & Betty S. Fenton alumni Professor in the LSU Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at the LSU College of Engineering and has a joint appointment in LSU AgCenter.

Sabliov said, “It’s nice that you pay attention to what molecules want to do.” “I think a lot on how molecules like each other or like repelling each other or like to selfassemble in a certain mannertheir characteristics, relationships.” If you create the right environment for a specific molecule, it will behave in such a way as to lead to nanoparticle production. In our case this means that it will selfassemble into a ball around an agricultural chemical.

When it comes time to test the nanoparticles, Sabliov uses hydroponics. This involves growing plants without soil. Because soil introduces a host unknown variables.

“Hydroponics, which is the stepping stone to greenhouse and field applications,” Sabliov stated. “If you start by testing nanoparticles in soil, it will take you a long time to answer your research question with any certainty.”

Once Sabliov is satisfied that the loaded nanoparticles have been tested on plants in soil, she teams up with LSU AgCenter specialists. Trey Price, a plant pathologist at the Macon Ridge Research Station in Winnsboro, Louisiana, recently harvested soybeans from an initial field trial where the seeds had been treated with Sabliov’s fungicide-wrapped-in-lignin nanoparticles before being exposed to a fungus and common soybean pathogen called Rhizoctonia solani.

Price stated that the treated seeds were planted in two greenhouse experiments and one small field trial. “The soybeans treated using the fungicide-loaded microparticles did as well as those treated with a wider formulation of commercial pesticide. However, the plants treated with no fungicide produced less and were less productive.”

Price stated that fungicides provide insurance against the spread of seedling diseases in the critical two-to three weeks following planting. This is a significant annual expense for many farmers. “Field trials at this research station are geared to justifying or decreasing those costs and keeping farms in business.”

Fungi are the most common cause of soybean diseases. They thrive in warm, humid environments. Price says that Louisiana farmers have more difficulties protecting their crops from diseases because of the subtropical climate. For weed control and profit maximization, soybeans are often grown in rotations with other crops. Crop prices can fluctuate from one season to the next. These crops include wheat, corn, sorghum and rice, as well as sugarcane grasses. Or, you can choose to grow cotton, which is a broadleaf. The state’s soybean production exploded dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s agricultural revolution. It rose from 100,000 acres to more than 2 million. Louisiana is home to more than 2,200 soybean farmers.

Cannatella stated, “Farmers would have to suffer losses in production if there was no impartial, third-party research done by land-grant institutions such as LSU to discover solutions to troublesome mushrooms like Dr. Sabliov is researching.” It is more efficient to have someone with her expertise find these things and let them transition them back to their farms. This also allows us be more sustainable and environmentally conscious by generating solutions in a laboratory or on a research farm, rather than on a larger scale. Research is a great investment in Louisiana farmers’ dollars.

Louisiana soybean growers spend an average of $164 million each year on herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides. This represents almost half the total direct costs of soybean production. These inputs are what farmers call them. Any reduction would be a benefit to the farming industry and the environment.

Cannatella stated that farm inputs like seed treatments are on the rise in price and availability. They also face constant questions from people who don’t know how to invest in time and resources to produce safe and abundant crops. We believe Dr. Sabliov and the partnership between Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board and LSU will provide answers to all these problems. All Louisianans, including farmers, are able to reap the benefits.

Sabliov stated, “I’m so thankful and proud that Louisiana’s soybean farmers and the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board believe our technology and continue supporting our work even though the development of our formulations to a commercial product could still take many years.”

Sabliov currently holds 4 U.S. Patents on Nanotechnologies for Agricultural and Biomedical Applications.