04 November 2026, Ede, NL: Biotalys NV, an agricultural technology company based in Ghent, Belgium, has received approval from the Netherlands’ Ctgb, the Dutch Board for the Authorisation of Plant Protection Products and Biocides, to run large scale demonstration trials of its next generation biofungicide, EVOCA NG, on Dutch farms. The clearance allows growers to apply the product on up to 150 hectares of tomatoes, 150 hectares of cucumbers and 50 hectares of strawberries, with the harvested produce permitted to enter the food chain, a provision that goes beyond a standard research trial.
EVOCA NG is built on Biotalys’ AGROBODY platform, which uses small engineered proteins modeled on antibody fragments to interfere with the biology of plant pathogens rather than acting as a broad spectrum chemical toxin. The product is designed to control Botrytis, commonly known as grey mould, and powdery mildew, two fungal diseases that cause significant losses in protected horticulture crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries. Carlo Boutton, chief executive officer of Biotalys, described the approval of the demonstration program as an important milestone for the company.
Growers test the product ahead of formal approval
Several Dutch growers had already tested the technology ahead of the formal clearance. Noud Dings of Brookberries applied the product on 3.7 hectares of strawberries and reported good disease control. Rob van Enckevort of De Peelkroon said this marked the second consecutive season the product performed well against powdery mildew in strawberries, adding grower level validation to the laboratory and field trial data Biotalys has generated internally.
The Ctgb clearance follows regulatory progress Biotalys has already secured for the earlier EVOCA product line outside Europe. The company received approval from the United States Environmental Protection Agency in December 2025, followed by state level registrations in Florida and California during 2026. Review of EVOCA in the European Union is continuing on a separate track from the Dutch demonstration clearance for the newer EVOCA NG formulation.
Biotalys, citing data from Kynetec alongside its own estimates, puts the combined addressable market for biofungicides targeting Botrytis and powdery mildew in its priority crops at around 1.1 billion dollars. The company has set 2029 as its target year for a commercial launch of EVOCA NG in both the United States and the European Union, which means the demonstration trials now underway in the Netherlands are intended to generate multiple seasons of real world field data well ahead of that launch window.
Biotalys is listed on Euronext Brussels under the ticker BTLS and has positioned its AGROBODY protein engineering platform as a faster route to new biocontrol candidates than conventional biopesticide discovery, which typically relies on screening naturally occurring microorganisms or compounds. The Dutch demonstration approval gives the company a controlled commercial scale environment in which to refine application rates and timing for EVOCA NG against grey mould and powdery mildew before it seeks full registration in the Netherlands and other European markets.
For growers, the ability to sell produce treated under the demonstration program removes one of the usual barriers to large scale field testing, since trial crops are normally destroyed rather than marketed. That detail, confirmed in Biotalys’ own announcement of the approval, suggests Dutch regulators were satisfied with the safety profile data submitted for EVOCA NG ahead of the 2027 growing season trials.
Protected horticulture significance
Tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries are among the highest value protected crops grown in Dutch greenhouses and polytunnels, where humid, enclosed conditions make grey mould and powdery mildew persistent threats throughout the growing season. Growers in this sector have faced rising pressure to reduce reliance on conventional synthetic fungicides as resistance builds up in fungal populations and as retailers tighten residue requirements on fresh produce destined for European supermarkets. A biologically based alternative that can be rotated with conventional chemistry gives growers another tool for resistance management without requiring them to accept lower control levels.
Ctgb evaluates plant protection products and biocides for the Dutch market under the European Union’s broader regulatory framework for authorising crop protection chemistry, a process that typically separates demonstration or large scale trial permissions from full commercial product authorisation. The approval granted to Biotalys covers only the demonstration phase for EVOCA NG, meaning growers participating in the program can use the product commercially within the defined hectare limits for tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries while Biotalys continues to compile the data package needed for a broader Dutch and European Union registration covering additional crops and larger planted areas.
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