Agricultural Adjuvants: The Promising Substance for Enhancing Agrochemical Quality
Lately, it has become a more regular practice within the farming community to make substantial use of crop-protection chemicals such as fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides.
This is, of course, done keeping in mind the preservation and improvement of agricultural yields. However, using such chemicals extensively can also have an impact on the end consumers in terms of health and safety.
Keeping this in mind, and the fact that with the increasing global population, the demand for food is only going to increase, constant research has been done to make the present crop-protecting chemicals more effective and safer. The agricultural adjuvant is one of the results of this research.
Agriculture adjuvant is a promising solution that can be put together and used with fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides to enhance their effectiveness.
This article will summarize the function of agriculture adjuvants and their market scenarios. The article will also discuss various types of adjuvants in depth.
What is an agriculture adjuvant?
An agriculture adjuvant is a substance used for enhancing the pesticide’s efficiency level, including the different agents that eliminate or control unsolicited pests.
However, adjuvants cannot be used separately for crop protection. Rather, the adjuvants pesticides are mixed with the available crop-protecting chemicals before applying them directly to the crops.
There is no role of agricultural adjuvants in killing or controlling the pests in the crops. Instead, these adjuvants are used for modifying the agriculture spray protesters, enhancing pesticides’ ability to target the present harmful organism and protect the crops against them.
Agricultural Adjuvants Market
According to BIS Research, the agricultural adjuvants market was valued at $3.3 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $4.78 billion by 2027. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.43% during the forecast period 2022–2027.
How is agriculture adjuvant applied?
Following are the ways followed by the agriculture sector for applying the adjuvant on the plant.
- Formulation or In-Can Adjuvant
In this method, the agricultural pesticides are already added to the crop protection product, and the farmer does not need to use any additional adjuvants. The farmer can check the product label and know whether the adjuvant is added or not.
- Spray or Tank Mix Adjuvant
In this method, an agriculture adjuvant is stored in a tank mixed with crops protecting products to get the spray solution ready. The label on the protection product clearly states the farmers the type of adjuvant that should be used.
The various types of agricultural adjuvant have been discussed as follows:
Types of Agricultural Adjuvants
Agricultural adjuvants are classified into three main categories, namely, surfactants, oil-based adjuvants, and agricultural spray adjuvants.
- Surfactants
Surfactants refer to the activated agents responsible for improving the performance of the adjuvants by enhancing surface contact and rising leaf penetration.
Surfactants are further classified into three categories, namely, cationic surfactants, anionic surfactants, and non-iconic surfaces. Among these, only non-ionic surfactants and anionic surfactants are used in the form of adjuvant farming. The cationic surfactant is not meant to be used with plants. It is mostly used as a cleaning agent in products such as soaps.
- Oil-Based Adjuvants
Oil-based adjuvants are generally used to slow down the death of crops and provide protection by increasing water absorption and making plants better. Oil-based adjuvants are not limited only to plants; they can also be helpful in enhancing leaf quality.
These adjuvants are further divided into three categories, namely, vegetable oil concentrate, crop oil concentrates, and crop oils.
The difference between crop oil and crop oil concentrates is that crop oil is mixed with only non-ionic surfactants, and crop oil concentrates are mixed with both oil and non-ionic surfactants.
- Agricultural Spray Adjuvants
Agricultural spray adjuvants are mostly used for modifying the physical characteristics of crop sprays. Agricultural spray adjuvants reduce the potential of hydrogen (pH) of the crop sprays to control agents and increase the minimized drift and droplet size.
Adjuvants are generally mixed with herbicides, but with time their use with insecticides and pesticides is also getting increased, and the market demand is constantly growing.
How do adjuvants works in the agriculture sector for plants?
The working of agriculture adjuvants is like how water works for plants. Water has bipolar molecules and contains positive and negative charges which attract each other just like a magnet.
When compared with the internal molecules of the water, the surface molecule attracts the negative and positive charges better and leads to high surface tension.
The role of agriculture adjuvants starts from here. They help in breaking the surface tension in two ways. The first is by improving the unbalancing of surface molecules, and the other way is by decreasing the attraction force among the surface molecules.
It results in reducing the tightness of the plant surface, allowing water and other required materials to pass in a better manner and protecting plants from danger.
Final Thoughts
Adjuvant farming will play an important role in the effective and safe use of pesticides if used as per the recommendation on the crop protection labels.
Although agriculture adjuvants can perform multiple functions, on the other hand, no single crop-protecting product can enhance the performance of all pesticides.
Using adjuvants pesticides is a great way of enhancing and getting the best performance from the chosen agrochemical and keeping the crops healthy and safe.
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