The great advances in agrarian sciences, although in the past they were more adaptive than proper, now swell and define particular technologies of “agro”, initiating a new phase of agriculture, characterizing the fourth Agricultural Revolution.

Focusing on plant health, in this Revolution, sophisticated technologies emerge using living beings and their products to control pests, diseases and weeds and to prepare the soil for different crops.

Today, these living beings (microbiological: fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes, and macrobiological: wasps, flies and mites) widely used in agriculture are called bioinputs, which also add vegetable oils, plant and algae and substances attracting and repelling arthropods-pest. Among the bioinputs, there are today the modern biodefensives, such as bioinsecticides, biofungicides and bionematicides.

This reality is so expressive that the growth in this sector, in Brazil, exceeds 50% per year, in contrast to the 10 to 15% growth in the world. We started with seven bioinputs registered in the country a decade ago, and today that number is over 500. It is a path of no return and with limits still unknown.

The predominant use of bioinputs for soil and pest and disease management characterizes a new strategy called biological management. There are few crops where biological management can be fully practiced, but sugarcane is one of them, as most pests and diseases have well-developed technology for the use of bioinputs, as well as soil management.

The soil of sugarcane fields has received the application of several fungi and bacteria with well-defined functions. But mixtures of microorganisms (probiotics) are also used, most of the time unknown, including or not nutritive substances for them (prebiotics, rich in carbon), which populate the soil and improve its physical and chemical characteristics.

Bioinputs based on the Trichoderma fungus harzianum or bacteria of the genus Bacillus are commonly applied to control pest nematodes (small root worms) and pathogens that cause plant diseases. For these functions, there is direct or indirect control, where plant immunity is increased, and the production of superficial and deep roots is stimulated, which also leads to a better resistance of plants to pests and drought.

In the 2020s, bionematicides surpassed, in applied area, the synthetic chemical nematicides in Brazil, as they have shown better efficacy, longer period of action and additional positive effects, without impacts to man, animals and the environment and with many functions. secondary aggregates.

But these microorganisms are beginning to be exploited to replace chemical fertilizers, with superior performance. The fungus and bacteria mentioned make available phosphorus, potassium, zinc, iron and manganese, but the bacterium Azospirillum brasilense has been used to make nitrogen available to plants, reaching, today, to replace almost entirely the chemical fertilizer, which is lost mainly by leaching, often polluting our groundwater.

The next function of some of these microorganisms, such as Trichoderma harzianum, it will be for the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as this fungus is able to transform it into soil carbon. This will create new value for bio - inputs and can accumulate carbon credits in the near future.

The fungi Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae have been used more frequently against most soil pests, which predominate in sugarcane fields. Since the 2010s, Metarhizium anisopliae has been mixed with chemical insecticide mixtures (which are reduced by 10% of the dose) to improve the latter's performance and duration of action in controlling leafhoppers, Mahanarva species, and to provide control of other pests, such as sugarcane borer, Sphenophorus levis, aphids, mealybugs and chicken bread. The fungus Beauveria bassiana started to be used to control larvae and, mainly, adults of Sphenophorus in sugarcane fields, in addition to sugarcane borer, giant borer, aphids, mealybugs, ants and chicken bread.

These fungi and bacteria are currently used in more than 5 million hectares of sugarcane fields in the country. They only got to this level thanks to the development of complex formulations of bioinputs , which allowed the best performance of these microorganisms in the adverse conditions of agricultural environments.

It is worth noting that on-farm factories of microorganisms can even produce quality products, but they will never have modern formulations. But, unfortunately, most of these homemade factories do not produce quality microorganisms, which compromises biological management and may affect public health.

From 2022, the expanded use of entomopathogenic nematodes (which cause disease in insect pests) is expected to change the management of soil pests, including migdolus, termites and Hyponeuma taltula (hairy borer). These nematodes, which do not attack plants, penetrate the insects into the soil and regurgitate a bacterium that causes generalized infection in the pest, killing it and liquefying internal tissues, which will serve as food for these worms for 2 to 3 generations.

Finally, in the aerial part of the plants, the sugarcane borer is controlled with the wasp Cotesia flavipes since the 1970s in Brazil. In the 2010s, Cotesia was replaced by the microwasp Trichogramma galloi, which has a great advantage over the previous one by parasitizing the pest eggs and not the caterpillars, preventing it from entering the sugarcane stalk.

Currently, both Trichogramma and Cotesia are released in cane fields with drones. The biological basis for these technologies was developed by our research group in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo. The release of Trichogramma with drones, which started in 2017, today represents 98% of the 3.5 million hectares treated. Cotesia 's release with drones is smaller, but it has guaranteed flights at any time of the day, which is not possible with manual release. Cotesia is used on more than 4 million hectares across the country.

I repeat, biological management in sugarcane fields is a path of no return. A new world is opening up for farmers, who are eager to keep up with scientific news. All “agro” professionals need constant updates on the use of bio-inputs, which are as technical as the old synthetic chemical pesticides, but much superior in results and in tune with the field.