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MIT researchers reducing pesticide runoff

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers are developing a method for reducing pesticide runoff from spraying.

MIT professor of mechanical engineering Kripa Varanasi says only two percent of pesticide liquid actually sticks to plants during agricultural applications, with a significant portion ending up in the soil.

He tells Brownfield a combination of two inexpensive polymer additives has shown to drastically cut down on the amount of pesticide being lost.

“What we call polyelectrolytes that are naturally occurring and also biodegradable.  So we expect them to not have any additional effects other than just trying to pin the droplets (to the plant).”

The next phase of research involves increasing the scale to eventually get to a real-world system.

“The physics work, therefore we need to show that we can scale this up to a farm level.  And I think once that’s done, this should be widely adopted.”

Varanasi says his team is looking into the agricultural supply chain for opportunities to eventually take this technology to market.