Biostimulants for a sustainable agriculture
Anna Botta, R&D technician, Bioibérica Plant Physiology
“Agriculture both contributes to climate change and is affected by climate change. The EU needs to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture and adapt its food-production system to cope with climate change.
This was the warning given by the European Environment Agency at the end of 2015, to which were added the following observations:
- Flowering and harvest seasons for cereal crops are now happening several days earlier.
- Extreme heat waves and reduced rainfall and water available hamper agricultural productivity.
- Interannual crop yields are increasingly varying due to extreme weather events and other factors such as pests and diseases.
- Nitrogen-based fertilisers release nitrous oxide emissions and also nitrates to soil and water bodies.
This is why, at the Plant Physiology division of Bioibérica, we are convinced that bioestimulants can play an important role in the fight against climate change, precisely because of their mode of action. These products also take into account the plant metabolism and act on the physiological mechanisms of the crop to increase the resistance and the recovery of the plant in abiotic stressful situations, maintaining the balance between biostimulation and the provision of nutrients during the most critical times for the crop.
Being natural products composed of different raw materials with synergistic effects, biostimulants are also an alternative attempt to reduce the use of plant protection products such as pesticides. Our range of natural plant defence inducers are alternative products, which aim to early and largely promote the plant’s own defences against pathogen infections. In this way, a reduction is achieved in both the number of applications and the dose of plant protection treatments. This translates into less chemical wastes.
Our aim is to continue working for a sustainable agriculture and for the farmer to have the tools needed to adapt to the new conditions and demands of the market, both environmental and technological.