Fermentation for Biofungicides

As a leading CDMO, BOC Sciences provides solutions for biofungicides and offers customized services for the fermentation production of a wide range of metabolites. We specialize in fermentation-related projects to meet the needs of our customers in agriculture and other industries.

What is Biofungicides?

Biofungicides usually contain microorganisms (mostly bacteria or fungi) as active ingredients to fight certain plant pathogens. Biofungicides are usually beneficial microorganisms isolated from the soil, such as fungi, bacteria or actinomycetes that are active in roots, soil and plant surfaces. Biofungicides can control many different species of fungi and water molds, and some biofungicides also control bacterial diseases, but each individual microorganism can only control certain pathogens. The beneficial bacteria or fungi in a biofungicide fight pathogens in a variety of ways. These microorganisms impede the activity of plant pathogens by producing a wide range of antibiotics, parasitizing other fungi, competing with other fungi, and inducing local or systemic resistance in plants.

Mechanism of Action of Biofungicides

Microbial biofungicides are living organisms, and they act in a different manner than chemically synthesized fungicides. Some of these mechanisms include:

• Antibiosis: Antibiosis can refer to an antagonistic association between an organism and a metabolite produced by another organism. Many biofungicides produce antibiotics, enzymes or other toxins that can inactivate pathogenic microorganisms. These active metabolites are usually produced by various soil microorganisms during their growth, such as the fungichromin, produced by Streptomyces.
• Competition: Biofungicides can colonize the entire root surface and compete effectively with plant pathogens for nutrients or space.
• Parasitism: Biofungicides have a fungal parasitic effect and attack the pathogen directly.
• Inducing host plant resistance: Biofungicides induce metabolic changes in plants that increase their resistance to various plant pathogens.

Fermentation Production of Biofungicides

Advances in fermentation technology have made possible the large-scale production of microbial biofungicides, which previously could only grow in small batches on highly specific substrates, such as the roots of infected pathogens. The development of new biofungicides to control plant pathogens requires large-scale screening and production, where development costs and technical challenges are major obstacles. The large-scale production of biofungicides via solid-state fermentation (SSF) has attracted widespread interest amid the increasing demand for biofungicides to replace overused chemical insecticides. SSF is a cost-effective process in which microorganisms grow on solid substrates and produce value-added products such as enzymes and other metabolites, and even cheap and readily available agro-industrial wastes can be utilized as substrates for SSF.

Advantages of Biofungicides

• The use of biofungicides can reduce production costs by reducing expenditures on chemical fungicides.
• Biofungicides are generally less phytotoxic than chemical fungicides and they are harmless to beneficial insects.
• Most biofungicides have short restricted entry interval, are safe and are non-toxic, which helps create a more productive greenhouse environment.
• The unique mode of action of biofungicides makes it impossible for plant pathogens to develop resistance to them.

Why Choose BOC Sciences?

• With over 2,000,000 liters of large-scale fermentation capacity, we offer a seamless manufacturing process for the production of biofungicides.
• Batch and continuous sterilization of culture media, and dedicated facilities for strain preparation and storage.
• Extensive downstream processing including centrifugation, ultrafiltration, evaporation, and ion exchange resins.
• A comprehensive portfolio of analytical capabilities, our services include stability studies, structure confirmation, impurity preparation and characterization, standard preparation and characterization, and cleanup validation.