Three companies and two technology centres will run the Moblastop Project, “Developing an active greenhouse cover, repellent against whitefly and thrips pests,” which has been subsidised by the CDTI with 0.528 million euros through the Feder-Innterconecta Program 2018, with European funds from the Multi-regional Operational Program of Spain (POPE), belonging to the Government Program of R&D&i of the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, oriented to the Challenges of Society for the resolution of problems and present and future needs of our society.
The Moblastop Project has a total budget of 1.17 million euros and will develop a novel method for creating an active greenhouse cover against pests, which will make it possible to avoid the difficulty of incorporating natural repellent polymers in a technically and economically viable way, using bentonites and taking advantage of the properties of these compounds as substance absorbers.
Plants have been shown to have defence mechanisms against pests through substances that they produce themselves which are detected by vector insects due to their volatility. These natural repellents can be incorporated into the polymer so that they are released by it progressively throughout the shelf life of the greenhouse cover.
The MoBlaStop Project designs a consortium made up of three companies ranging from obtaining bentonites of natural origin for their functionalization, extraction, and modification of natural insect repellent substances, to the transformation of plastics through the addition of active substances.
The companies participating in the project are:
Solplast S.A., manufacturer of greenhouse covers,
Destilerías Muñoz Gálvez, S.A., manufacturer of chemical-aromatic substances,
and Clariant Ibérica Producción, S.A., as a company producing natural bentonites.
Likewise, it is being developed in conjunction with the CETEC Technology Centre and the Cajamar-Las Palmerillas Experimental Station:
CETEC, a specialist in plastics in the different facets of its additivation, transformation and analysis, and with wide experience in the participation and management of consortium projects.
Cajamar-Las Palmerillas Experimental Station, a reference technological centre in intensive Mediterranean agriculture, with long experience in crop protection, pests, and post-harvest diseases, and application of molecular techniques for the detection and identification of pathogens and pests.
