Enko Chem, the Mystic-based agricultural tech company, says it has a new type of fungicide ready to go into field testing.
The chemistry was discovered through Enko’s AI-driven discovery platform and then developed in collaboration with Syngenta Crop Protection.
According to the company, fungal pathogens remain among the most economically damaging threats to global crop production, with yield losses in the billions of dollars annually.
“This milestone reflects steady progress in a complex area of crop protection research,” said Tony Klemm, CEO of Enko.
Enko’s ENKOMPASS platform uses AI to screen billions of compounds at the start of its discovery pipeline, searching for active ingredients that bind to certain chemical targets in a pest.
Those with potential are tested in controlled environments at Enko’s Mystic facility to generate data about their effectiveness.
Syngenta plans to conduct field testing next year at several locations to assess performance of the fungicide chemistry under typical grower conditions.
Enko was founded in 2017 in Boston and moved to Mystic in 2021, taking over a former Monsanto greenhouse facility.
