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Agricultural biostimulants include diverse formulations of compounds, substances and other products that are applied to plants or soils to regulate and enhance the crop’s physiological processes, thus making them more efficient. Biostimulants act on plant physiology through different pathways than nutrients to improve crop vigour, yields, quality and post-harvest shelf life/conservation.
Biostimulants foster plant growth and development throughout the crop life cycle from seed germination to plant maturity in a number of demonstrated ways, including but not limited to:
- Improving the efficiency of the plant’s metabolism to induce yield increases and enhanced crop quality;
- Increasing plant tolerance to and recovery from abiotic stresses;
- Facilitating nutrient assimilation, translocation and use;
- Enhancing quality attributes of produce, including sugar content, colour, fruit seeding, etc;
- Regulating and improving plant water balance;
- Enhancing certain physicochemical properties of the soil and fostering the development of complementary soil micro-organisms.
What distinguishes biostimulants from traditional crop inputs?
- Biostimulants operate through different mechanisms than fertilisers, regardless of the presence of nutrients in the products.
- Biostimulants differ from crop protection products because they act only on the plant’s vigour and do not have any direct actions against pests or disease.
- Crop biostimulation is thus complementary to crop nutrition and crop protection.
Biostimulants are a critical ingredient in Europe’s sustainability
Europe 2020 puts forward three mutually reinforcing priorities:
- Smart growth: developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation.
- Sustainable growth: promoting a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy.
- Inclusive growth: fostering a high-employment economy delivering social and territorial cohesion.
(From Europe 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, Communication from the European Commission, 2010)
The biostimulants sector can contribute to all three of these policy objectives as outlined in the sections on sustainable agriculture, socio-economic development and knowledge & innovation.