Sonia Rip­pa, a research engi­neer at the GEC, is work­ing in par­tic­u­lar on rape­seed, with the aim of find­ing nat­ur­al alter­na­tives to pesticides.

Espe­cial­ly as the Éco­phy­to II+ plan sets a tar­get of reduc­ing the use of plant pro­tec­tion prod­ucts by 50% by 2025. This inter­est is reflect­ed in the SHIELD project, fund­ed by the ANR Eco­phy­tomat­u­ra­tion research agency in part­ner­ship with Stepan Europe, a sub­sidiary of the Stepan Com­pa­ny (USA), and the RIBP lab­o­ra­to­ry (URCA, Reims).

“I have been work­ing for a num­ber of years on study­ing the effects and mech­a­nism of action of rham­no­lipids pro­duced by bac­te­ria, which also have prop­er­ties that stim­u­late nat­ur­al plant defence mech­a­nisms. Togeth­er with my part­ners, I have demon­strat­ed the ben­e­fits of these mol­e­cules for rape­seed. Now, with SHIELD, the aim is to boost the effec­tive­ness of these mol­e­cules against scle­ro­tinia, also known as white rot”, explains Sonia Rippa.

What does this mean in prac­ti­cal terms? “We are study­ing dif­fer­ent for­mu­la­tion strate­gies in order to offer a bio­con­trol solu­tion based on nat­ur­al sub­stances. We’re halfway through the three-year project, and we hope to find an alter­na­tive prod­uct by the end of SHIELD,” she concludes.