Recent years have seen an explosion of products under the term “biostimulants” for use as alternatives to traditional crop production chemicals. Among the most commonly used biostimulants are humic ...and fulvic acids, seaweed extracts, and beneficial microbes. This article gives a brief overview of these substances and their reported effects on plant growth and health and also presents preliminary results from ongoing studies at the SWFREC.
Anthropogenic climate change, namely climate alterations induced by human activities, is causing some issues to agricultural systems for their vulnerability to extreme events. Forecasts predict a ...global population increase in the near years that will exacerbate this situation, elevating the global demand for food. It will pose severe concerns in terms of natural resource usage and availability. Agriculture is one of the anthropogenic activities that will be more affected in the future. Climate extremes menace to affect the quantity and quality of crop production severely. Drought, water and soil salinity are considered among the most problematic factors that anthropogenic climate change will increase. This complex and worrying scenario requires the urgent implementation of sustainable measures which are capable of improving crop yield and quality, fostering the robustness and resilience of cropping systems.
Among the more current methodology, the use of natural plant biostimulants (PBs) has been proposed to improve plant resistance to abiotic environmental stresses. The advantage of using these substances is due to their effectiveness in improving crop productivity and quality. Therefore, in this review, the most recent researches dealing with the use of natural PBs for improving plant resistance to drought and salinity, in an anthropogenic climate change scenario, have been reported and critically discussed.
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•Climate change will hard test agricultural systems more and more in the near future.•Drought and salt stress cause considerable losses in crop production.•Sustainable and cogent measures are needed to improve the stability of agriculture.•Natural plant biostimulants improve crop productivity under environmental stress.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Blueberry production is increasing in Brazil, and growers are turning to bio-inputs or biostimulants to be used on their growth. This has been due to the growing concern about sustainability in the ...food production chain and the necessity to increase the yield. The current experiment aimed at evaluating the effects of Samurai King, EM-1 and Brutal Plus (Minhofértil) biostimulants on the cultivation of Southern Highbush blueberries (V. corymbosum L.), cultivar 'Biloxi'. The parameters evaluated were plant height (cm), diameter of the main stem (mm), number of shoots, chlorophyll content, total number of leaves, leaf length and width. The total mass, number of fruits, average mass per fruit, the transversal and longitudinal diameters, and the total sugars (°Brix) were also measured. In 2020, the treatment of Samurai King + EM-1 showed the highest efficiency for the studied parameters related to fruits and yield but with no significant difference as compared to the other treatments. Regarding the plant growth, treatments 1 (Brutal Plus) and 5 (Brutal Plus + EM-1) were the most efficient. In 2021, treatment 7 (Brutal Plus + Samurai King + EM-1) had the highest yields, except for average mass per fruit and total sugars. In the two years of evaluation, although treatments obtained lower averages than the control, the effect observed was generally positive, revealing the efficiency of products containing microorganisms for the growth of blueberry plants. In conclusion, these bioproducts could remarkably affect plant biomass, production and fruit quality, resulting in better yields.
The carrying out of uniform forage crops represents an important technological loop for all agricultural species. The uniformity of these crops is caused especially by seed germination capacity, ...respectively by plant emergence capacity, depending upon the climatic and technological conditions. With regards to the researches carried out in this direction, we present here the influence exerted by some biostimulators, used through extra-root application during plant vegetation period, upon seeds submitted to germination. Concerning the red clover seeds, we may notice an increase of the germination energy from 88.33% in the untreated control variant to 95.67% in the variants submitted to treatments with biostimulant substances.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The carrying out of uniform forage crops represents an important technological loop for all agricultural species. The uniformity of these crops is caused especially by seed germination capacity, ...respectively by plant emergence capacity, depending upon the climatic and technological conditions. With regards to the researches carried out in this direction. We present here the influence exerted by some biologically-active products, used through extra-root application during plant vegetation period, upon seeds submitted to germination. The observations performed on alfalfa seeds have led to the conclusion that the per cent of germinated seeds ranges from 95.66%. In the untreated control variant, to 99.33% in the variant treated with the product Stimupro and Mega grow.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Microbial plant biostimulants have been successfully applied to improve plant growth, stress resilience and productivity. However, the mechanisms of action of biostimulants are still enigmatic, which ...is the main bottleneck for the fully realization and implementation of biostimulants into the agricultural industry. Here, we report the elucidation of a global metabolic landscape of maize (
Zea mays
L) leaves in response to a microbial biostimulant, under well-watered and drought conditions. The study reveals that the increased pool of tricarboxylic acid (TCA) intermediates, alterations in amino acid levels and differential changes in phenolics and lipids are key metabolic signatures induced by the application of the microbial-based biostimulant. These reconfigurations of metabolism gravitate toward growth-promotion and defense preconditioning of the plant. Furthermore, the application of microbial biostimulant conferred enhanced drought resilience to maize plants
via
altering key metabolic pathways involved in drought resistance mechanisms such as the redox homeostasis, strengthening of the plant cell wall, osmoregulation, energy production and membrane remodeling. For the first time, we show key molecular events, metabolic reprogramming, activated by a microbial biostimulant for plant growth promotion and defense priming. Thus, these elucidated metabolomic insights contribute to ongoing efforts in decoding modes of action of biostimulants and generating fundamental scientific knowledgebase that is necessary for the development of the plant biostimulants industry, for sustainable food security.
Abiotic and biotic stresses limit the growth and productivity of plants. In the current global scenario, in order to meet the requirements of the ever-increasing world population, chemical pesticides ...and synthetic fertilizers are used to boost agricultural production. These harmful chemicals pose a serious threat to the health of humans, animals, plants, and the entire biosphere. To minimize the agricultural chemical footprint, extracts of
(ANE) have been explored for their ability to improve plant growth and agricultural productivity. The scientific literature reviewed in this article attempts to explain how certain bioactive compounds present in extracts aid to improve plant tolerances to abiotic and/or biotic stresses, plant growth promotion, and their effects on root/microbe interactions. These reports have highlighted the use of various seaweed extracts in improving nutrient use efficiency in treated plants. These studies include investigations of physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms as evidenced using model plants. However, the various modes of action of
extracts have not been previously reviewed. The information presented in this review depicts the multiple, beneficial effects of
-based biostimulant extracts on plant growth and their defense responses and suggests new opportunities for further applications for marked benefits in production and quality in the agriculture and horticultural sectors.
•Scientific advances on vegetable quality in controlled environments are reviewed.•Genetic and grafting effects on quality are critically examined.•Key microclimate factors influential on quality are ...discussed.•Improving quality by nutrient management and biofortification is feasible.•Innovative management practices and future research warranted are highlighted.
During the last decades, food security has become a vital global concern driven by projections of population increase and exacerbated by the impending pressure of climate change on agriculture. Vegetable crops represent a fundamental ingredient of human diet due to their high nutritional value and bioactive content and could serve towards improving food security and nutritional quality, especially when managed under highly intensified cropping systems in controlled environments. Greenhouse and indoor growing modules not only allow for significantly higher yields compared to open field cropping systems, but also they can facilitate out of season production and substantial manipulation of the chemical composition and bioactive profile of the final product. The present work provides an updated critical overview of scientific advances regarding genotype and microclimate effects on the quality of greenhouse crops. In this context, innovative crop management practices are discussed, including management of the nutrient solution, biofortification and application of plant biostimulants. The review concludes by proposing future research pathways towards enhancing product quality of greenhouse vegetables.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
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•Protein hydrolysate biostimulants are based on a mixture of soluble peptides and amino acids.•Protein hydrolysates are mainly produced by chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of ...animal- or plant-derived proteins.•Protein hydrolysates can increase yield and product quality of horticultural crops.•Protein hydrolysates can enhance nutrient uptake and abiotic stress tolerance of horticultural crops.
In recent years, new strategies have been proposed in order to improve the sustainability of production systems for horticultural crops. A promising tool would be the use of substances and/or microorganisms defined also as ‘biostimulants’ able to enhance crop quality parameters, nutrient efficiency and abiotic stress tolerance. Protein hydrolysates (PHs) are an important group of plant biostimulants based on a mixture of peptides and amino acids that have received increasing attention in the recent years due to their positive effects on crop performances. PHs are mainly produced by enzymatic and/or chemical hydrolysis of proteins from animal- or plant-derived raw materials. The current review gives an overview of the biostimulant properties of PHs on productivity and product quality of horticultural crops, in particular fruit trees, vegetables, flower crops and ornamentals. After a brief introduction on PHs as plant biostimulants, this review focuses on the classification and chemical composition of PHs according to the source of proteins and method of protein hydrolysis. The plant uptake and transport of amino acids and peptides and the effects of PHs on primary and secondary metabolism as well as the biochemical and physiological processes conferring tolerance to abiotic stress are also covered. The review concludes by proposing several perspectives for future research aiming to understand the mode of action of PHs based on their composition and also to define the suitable time and dose of application.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
This review presents a comprehensive and systematic study of the field of plant biostimulants and considers the fundamental and innovative principles underlying this technology. The elucidation of ...the biological basis of biostimulant function is a prerequisite for the development of science-based biostimulant industry and sound regulations governing these compounds. The task of defining the biological basis of biostimulants as a class of compounds, however, is made more complex by the diverse sources of biostimulants present in the market, which include bacteria, fungi, seaweeds, higher plants, animals and humate-containing raw materials, and the wide diversity of industrial processes utilized in their preparation. To distinguish biostimulants from the existing legislative product categories we propose the following definition of a biostimulant as "a formulated product of biological origin that improves plant productivity as a consequence of the novel or emergent properties of the complex of constituents, and not as a sole consequence of the presence of known essential plant nutrients, plant growth regulators, or plant protective compounds." The definition provided here is important as it emphasizes the principle that biological function can be positively modulated through application of molecules, or mixtures of molecules, for which an explicit mode of action has not been defined. Given the difficulty in determining a "mode of action" for a biostimulant, and recognizing the need for the market in biostimulants to attain legitimacy, we suggest that the focus of biostimulant research and validation should be upon proof of efficacy and safety and the determination of a broad mechanism of action, without a requirement for the determination of a specific mode of action. While there is a clear commercial imperative to rationalize biostimulants as a discrete class of products, there is also a compelling biological case for the science-based development of, and experimentation with biostimulants in the expectation that this may lead to the identification of novel biological molecules and phenomenon, pathways and processes, that would not have been discovered if the category of biostimulants did not exist, or was not considered legitimate.
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