This input helps accelerate crop residue breakdown
A new crop input is available to producers from Mosaic Biosciences.
The company recently launched Renuvis Enzara, an enzyme-based product designed to help accelerate residue breakdown.
“When we say residue that can mean any crop from small grains to corn to soybeans,” Keith Byerly, commercial sustainability lead with Mosaic, told Farms.com.
Mosaic is currently conducting trials to test the product’s efficacy on crops like canola and flax. And work is underway to bring the product to the Canadian market too.
Renuvis Enzara, which is available now in the U.S. for use this fall, works using endoglucanase enzymes.
These enzymes are also used in biofuel production and paper recycling applications.
“The enzymes break down the structural outer fibers that hold the residue together,” Byerly said. “When you roll a combine through you might only create a few points of contact on that dry plant residue. Enzara creates thousands of points of contact to accelerate the natural process.”
One benefit of Renuvis Enzara is its flexibility.
It can be applied post-harvest, pre-plant, can be broadcast with liquid fertilizer, and in high-residue or heavy corn stover fields.
“Since it’s not a living organism like a bacteria, (Renuvis Enzara) doesn’t care as much about the freeze/thaw cycle,” Byerly said. “If you put it out in the fall and get a frost the next night, it’s not going to render that application useless. The product just waits for the temperature to go back up and goes right back to work.”
Trials show farmers using the product are seeing positive results.
Farmers in a corn-on-corn operation, for example, have experienced a 5.6 percent jump in stand establishment. And producers in a soybean-on-corn farm are seeing about a 6.4 percent improvement in stand establishment.
Mosaic Biosciences is documenting farmers using Renuvis Enzara.
An online resource is publishing results from 91 farm-scale trial locations across 21 states.