Novel Compound R&D Center has a leading compound creation team in China pesticide industry. We have been researching new compound innovation & synthesis, ¹⁴C radiolabelling, process optimization and other fields to continuously discover green compounds with new MoAs and structures in order to cope with rapidly evolving weed resistance problems and promote sustainable development of agriculture.

At present, the team is able to independently conduct labelling position selection, synthetic pathway design & optimization and final product purification & analysis. Meanwhile, a wide range of ¹⁴-radiolabeled compounds can be used, including common carboxyl label and others such as benzene ring label, pyridine ring label, isoxazole ring label, pyrazole ring label, furfuralcohol ring label and other heterocyclic ring labels.

Novel Compound R&D Center is well equipped with advanced R&D equipment, for example, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), liquid chromatography (LC), gas chromatography (GC), flash chromatography, microwave reactor, low temperature reactor and other R&D equipment.

After more than a decade of exploration and research, KingAgroot has successfully commercialized 4 patented compounds in China, namely Cypyrafluone, Bipyrazone, Tripyrasulfone, Fenpyrozone. Another three new pesticides (Flufenoximacil, Fluchloraminopyr-tefuryl and Flusulfinam) have been approved in Cambodia and other countries and are expected to be commercialized in China around 2024.

New compounds such as Broclozone, Fuxiucaomi, Ezuofuchong’an, Jiayangmicaowo and E’zuocaoding have been advanced to development stage, which will provide more solutions for the sustainable development of global agriculture.

KingAgroot’s Process Chemistry & Engineering Design Center has an industry-leading platform for new pesticide industrialization, specialized in process R&D, analysis R&D, environmental protection R&D, process safety evaluation, engineering R&D, engineering design, etc. After the compound structure design is completed and the compound is advanced to process stage, Process Chemistry & Engineering Design Center is in charge of conducting the process package design and providing support for the engineering construction and pilot production of projects in the factory. The center collaborates with various specialties to achieve high-level industrialization of pesticide innovation.

KingAgroot always adheres to the vision of green and sustainable development. The process safety evaluations are conducted at different stages of R&D to guide the process route selection and process optimization, thus to achieve intrinsically process safety and provide technical data for process design. Systematic research on the overall product manufacturing cycle is carried out from clean process, pretreatment method, terminal biochemistry, comprehensive treatment of waste gas and solid waste, etc., aimed at improving the utilization of raw materials, lower costs on the “three wastes” management (i.e., waste gas, wastewater, and solid waste) and product manufacturing, and reduce the emission of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

This center is equipped with various analytical instruments such as liquid chromatography (LC), gas chromatography (GC), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS), gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), total organic carbon (TOC) analyzer, preparative chromatography, water quality analyzer and many reaction risk assessment testing instruments such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), reaction calorimetry (RC1), accelerated rate calorimetry (ARC), etc.

Bioassay and Resistance Research Center has the most competitive herbicide resistance research team in China and the team members are working on weed resistance research and new compound screening & evaluation.

The world’s largest singular block smart bioassay greenhouse which covers a total effective usable area of 10,000 sqm has been completed in Bioassay and Resistance Research Center, making us possible to screen at most 10,000 new compounds every year.

Bioassay and Resistance Research Center is also equipped with germplasm resource bank storing abundant varieties of resistant weed seeds, automatic and intelligent phytotrons, illumination incubators, spray towers, artificial rainfall simulators, etc., which can efficiently protect successful implementation of related research projects. This center is able to deliver 1-2 new compounds to field trials every year.

Bioassay and Resistance Research Center collects thousands of suspected resistant weed seeds from every main producing areas of rice, wheat and corn across the country every year for resistance testing. Now, there are 4 low-temperature germplasm repositories in this center, storing ten thousands of resistant weed biotypes, ranking first in China even Asia in terms of resistant weed germplasm resource storage.

Formulation and Analysis Center has an industry-leading R&D team. To maximize the efficacy of new compounds and optimize formulation, extensive research on new formulations, new adjuvants, synergistic formulations, polymorphic drug formulations and formulations applicable for aerial applications are being conducted in this center to constantly develop new green formulation products with high efficacy, low toxicity and low residue for the new compounds.

At present, we have made technological breakthroughs in overcoming various common industry challenges, including “the development of high-solid-content OD formulations”, “the development of high-salt-system ME formulations”, “development of OD formulations for metastable polymorphs” and other fields. Our technological achievements have been successfully commercialized and launched.

During the R&D process, our OD products were finely ground into ultra-fine particles and can be fully atomized, making it possible to be used in high-concentration aerial application. Meanwhile, formulations were added with high-quality adjuvants and subjected to strict emulsification and dilution, thereby no additional adjuvants are required in aerial application, bringing about significant improvement in application efficiency and effect.

In order to effectively evaluate the safety of pesticides and chemicals, and ensure the accuracy and reliability of data, KingAgroot has established a GLP lab to conduct studies of product chemistry, environmental ecotoxicology, environmental fate, residues in crops, plant & animal metabolism, etc. Our GLP lab has been certified by OECD in physical-chemical property, environmental toxicity, environmental fate & bioaccumulation, and plant & animal metabolism. The lab is now applying the certifications of pesticide registration test agency in China.

Currently, the GLP lab is equipped with first-class facilities, such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), single-quadrupole liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (SQ-LC-MS), triple-quadrupole liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (TQ-LC-MS), gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer (LC-HR-TOFMS), bio-oxidation combustion analyzer, online radioisotope flowmeter, liquid scintillation counter (LSC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, etc., which fully meets the needs of various researches.

In the next 1-2 years, the GLP lab will obtain more qualifications, powering the creation and registration of new pesticides and their access to both China and global market.

Currently, biotechnology is exerting revolutionary impact on the crop breeding industry. KingAgroot is sparing no effort to seize the opportunity of the biotech revolution. By focusing on gene editing and gene modification, KingAgroot has developed important traits such as herbicide tolerance, insect resistance, disease resistance, high yield, etc., to endow seeds with new “vitality”.

Currently, KingAgroot has built a comprehensive biotech trait development platform, covering gene discovery & design, vector construction, genetic transformation, molecular identification, trait innovation, regulatory science and other fields. KingAgroot is able to conduct genetic transformation for 15 main crops, and owns the strongest genetic transformation capability with the highest throughput among all the global crop science companies.

As to GM field, KingAgroot has developed Flufenoximacil and Fluchloraminopyr-tefuryl tolerant traits and filed patents around the world. We have also developed various new insect/disease resistant traits and new techniques. All the new techniques and new traits have filed patents. As to gene editing field, KingAgroot has developed two proprietary techniques, Cas9-mediated sequential editing (CSE) and gene knock-up (KSE). The proprietary gene knock-up (KSE) technique (published online in Nature on November 15th, 2011), as a significant contribution by China to the field of gene editing, is expected to stand side by side with gene knock-out and base editing.

KingAgroot has applied its GM and gene-editing patents in practical biotech breeding. In 2022, KingAgroot’s biotech team successfully created corn that are tolerant to three herbicides (Flufenoximacil, Fluchloraminopyr-tefuryl and Glyphosate) and at the same time resistant to major lepidopteran insects. In the future, the seeds of corn, soybean, cotton, canola and sugarbeet with herbicide tolerance, insect resistance and disease resistance will be commercialized in China and around the world to greatly improve global agricultural productivity.

KingAgroot has established a global-leading modern commercial corn biotech breeding system to combine modern biotechnology with commercial breeding system, realizing highly efficient integration of genetic modification technique, gene editing technique, high-throughput haploid induction & doubling identification platform, molecular marker-assisted oriented improvement technique, whole genome selection technique and artificial intelligent breeding system.

With strong biological information and molecular marker development & oriented improvement team, KingAgroot has initially established a high-throughput haploid induction & doubling identification platform with highly efficient haploid induction technique, chemical doubling technique and embryo rescue-based tissue culture doubling technology. By using genotype data and whole genome selection prediction model, KingAgroot has achieved the goal of reducing breeding costs, shortening breeding cycles and greatly improving breeding efficiency.

Currently, KingAgroot has built 7 breeding stations in the 4 major corn production areas in China, equipped with 5 four-row plot seeders and 5 plot harvesters. Consequently, the whole process of corn breeding has been fully mechanized and informationized.

In 2021, the licensed variety of “Zhongyou 811” oilseed rape obtained seed production and operation permit, and began selling in Hubei, China. In 2022, 21 new corn varieties entered regional trial stage. Some varieties are expected to obtain certificate in 2024 and then successively access to market. In the future, KingAgroot will establish seed processing plants, and also build more breeding stations covering major production areas of corn, rice and wheat in China. Meanwhile, KingAgroot will apply for the integrated qualification of breeding, production and commercialization, thus making contributions to accelerating the development of modern seed industry and further safeguarding national food security.

KingAgroot’s Precision Agriculture R&D team is engaged in building a professional collaborative platform for scientific research and development, providing organized information and digital R&D support for enterprises by the most efficient method with the lowest cost. Currently, they have developed KingDraw (a chemical structure editing software), data collection & analysis system and weed recognition system to provide services for millions of users and further contribute to the development of agricultural modernization.

As an exclusive brand for the digitization of chemical scientific research developed by KingAgroot’s Precision Agriculture R&D team, KingDraw provides chemistry scientists with a special working station which includes the whole process of scientific research digital services. At present, KingAgroot has independently developed a series of products such as chemical structure editing software, compound encyclopedia, ELN and open platform. Since its launch at the end of 2018, KingDraw has recorded 150 million pieces of chemical substance information. As of February, 2023, the accumulative users of KingDraw around the world have reached over 1.8 million. As a consequence, KingDraw has become the second largest chemical structure editing software in the world behind ChemDraw in the United States, as well as one of the most outstanding achievements of Chinese enterprises in the field of chemical software.

Data collection & analysis system: collecting related information of geographical location, weather-climate, land area and soil conditions to obtain comprehensive resistance data of different weeds through various ways such as weed resistance feedback of large farmers, resistance surveys conducted by sales team, resistance research of R&D system, etc., and providing precise digital support for our R&D work.

Weed recognition system: with the application of deep network neural recognition technology in image identification field, the system can repeatedly analyze and recognize similar targets and automatically raise questions and give answers through computer weak supervised deep learning.