New technology helps pesticides stick, reducing waste and costs – Rural Radio Network

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A breakthrough from MIT researchers and AgZen, a spinoff company, is making agricultural spraying more efficient—cutting pesticide waste, lowering costs, and reducing environmental impact.
Agricultural sprays often bounce off plant leaves, leading to excessive use and runoff. AgZen’s solution adds a thin oil-based coating to droplets, helping them stick better.
“When these droplets hit the surface, they form an oil ring that essentially pins them to the leaf,” said MIT graduate student Simon Rufer.
The technology works with existing sprayers, eliminating the need for costly equipment changes. In field tests, it doubled product retention on crops like soybeans and kale. AgZen’s spray-monitoring system, RealCoverage, has already helped farmers reduce pesticide use by 30 to 50 percent, and the new coating could improve efficiency even further.
“You could give back a billion dollars to U.S. growers if you just saved 6 percent of their pesticide budget,” said Vishnu Jayaprakash, AgZen’s CEO.
With $10 million in new venture funding, the company plans to expand the technology to nearly a million acres in 2025, helping farmers get more from every spray while reducing environmental impact.
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