Moa Technology announces international field trial success

Oxford University spin-out Moa Technology has announced excellent results in multi-country field trials of promising new classes of herbicide with novel modes of action recently discovered by the company.

Weeds pose a serious and increasing threat to food security around the world. With over 270 species of weeds now resistant to existing commercial herbicides, and no new broad-spectrum herbicides brought to market in the last forty years, farmers globally are running out of tools to protect their harvests.

In a presentation to the American Chemical Society in Denver, Colorado titled “Discovering and developing the next generation of herbicides with novel modes of action” Moa revealed that all the chemical classes tested in trials earlier this year showed promising efficacy in the field, demonstrating consistent and robust results across multiple field trials and climatic zones. 

Two of the herbicide candidates demonstrated better broadleaf and grass weed control than existing commercial herbicides on a gram-for-gram basis in the majority of their field trials. A third chemical class, at an earlier stage of development, delivered good control of broadleaf weeds in field trials at slightly higher use-rates.