Exacta BioScience researches and develops bacteriophage-based biological technologies for the bacterial diseases that damage high-value crops — confronting copper resistance, antimicrobial resistance, biodiversity loss and phytotoxicity with precise, residue-free science.
Unveiling nature's potential
We identify and isolate microorganisms from natural sources and select them by mode of action, genomic profile and application potential, validated through laboratory-scale testing.
Transforming potential into reality
We develop stable, environmentally sound formulations with a 12+ month shelf life, supported by plant-biology models.
Taking research to the next level
We implement production processes for cost-effective business models, including downstream processing for purity and co-formulant mixing.
Bacterial pathogens cause some of the most damaging and least treatable diseases in high-value fruit, nut and vegetable crops. The conventional tools — copper-based bactericides and, in some regions, antibiotics — are losing ground, and they carry costs of their own.
Decades of copper sprays have selected for copper-tolerant strains of Pseudomonas and Xanthomonas, steadily eroding growers' main line of defence.
Where antibiotics such as streptomycin are still used against bacterial disease, they add to the global antimicrobial-resistance burden — a mounting regulatory and public-health concern.
Broad-spectrum chemistry does not distinguish friend from foe. It suppresses the beneficial microbes and wider farm biodiversity that healthy production depends on.
Repeated copper applications accumulate in soils, can be phytotoxic to the crop itself, and leave residues that limit market access.
Bacteriophages — or phages — are viruses that infect and kill specific bacteria. They are the most abundant biological entities on Earth and a natural check on bacterial populations. Because a given phage targets only its host bacterium, they offer a way to control a pathogen without harming the crop, the operator or the surrounding microbiome.
Each phage recognises and lyses only its target bacterium, leaving beneficial microbes and non-target organisms untouched.
Formulating phages as cocktails of complementary strains reduces the chance that a pathogen population escapes control.
Phages are self-limiting and leave no chemical residue, supporting food safety and market access.
Phage-based approaches can integrate with existing programmes, including where copper or antibiotic resistance has taken hold.
Exacta's research programme is organised around the bacterial pathogens that cause the greatest, least-treatable losses in high-value crops — beginning with two of the most important genera in fruit and nut production.
Bacterial canker & blast
A highly versatile bacterium with many pathovars. It causes bacterial canker of stone fruit and, as pv. actinidiae (Psa), the bacterial canker of kiwifruit that reshaped the global kiwi industry. Cool, wet spring conditions drive infection through blossoms and wounds, leading to cankers, gummosis and dieback.
Control challenge: Copper is the mainstay of control — and copper-resistant strains are now widespread, leaving growers with few effective options.
Read the full profileWalnut & hazelnut blight, bacterial spot
The cause of walnut blight (pv. juglandis) — one of the most economically important diseases of walnut — as well as bacterial blight of hazelnut (pv. corylina) and bacterial spot of stone fruit (pv. pruni). It infects developing nuts, leaves and shoots, causing black lesions and direct yield loss.
Control challenge: As with Pseudomonas, control leans heavily on copper, and copper tolerance undermines it.
Read the full profileFire blight
The cause of fire blight, a fast-moving disease of apple, pear and other rosaceous plants that can kill blossoms, shoots and whole trees within a single season.
Control challenge: Historically managed with the antibiotic streptomycin, fire blight is a textbook example of how disease control can drive antimicrobial resistance.
Read the full profileBacterial canker of tomato
A seed- and tool-borne bacterium that causes bacterial canker and wilt of tomato, with wilting, leaf scorch and fruit spotting that can devastate greenhouse and field crops.
Control challenge: There is no effective curative chemical control; management relies on hygiene and prevention.
Read the full profileBacterial wilt
A soil-borne pathogen that invades the vascular system of tomato, potato and many other hosts, causing rapid wilting and collapse. It is among the most destructive and persistent bacterial diseases worldwide.
Control challenge: Its soil-borne, systemic nature makes it extremely difficult to control with conventional chemistry.
Read the full profileThese descriptions reflect established, widely published plant-pathology knowledge. They describe pathogen biology and the diseases they cause, not any specific product.
The same infrastructure spans biodiscovery, formulation and scale-up — a platform capability, not a single research project.
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