Biome: the space gaining protagonism in biological strategies for crops

Professor Patrick Brown, responsible for the final remarks of the 2nd Congress on Biostimulants and Biocontrol held by Redagrícola last September 28 and 29, highlighted the importance of the interaction between plants and microorganisms for a better design of biological approaches in farming.

F. Aldunate M.

One of the most innovative aspects of the 2nd Congress on Biostimulants and Biocontrol organized by Redagrícola at the end of September was the emphasis on what happens under the soil, on the interaction between microorganisms and plants. This was pointed out by Dr. Patrick Brown, a distinguished academic from the University of California at Davis and one of the world's references in the development of biological research for agriculture.  

"One of the things that was very telling and interesting in this bio stimulant biopesticides Congress, more so than any other I've attended before, is the emphasis on the microbiome," said Patrick Brown. "It has been an emphasis not only in the area of biopesticides, but also biofertilizers and especially biostimulants. It's a sign of the importance of thinking of these products as a continuum, rather than as discrete product categories and discrete opportunities."

Brown was responsible for the closing keynote presentation at this Congress held in Lima on September 28 and 29, in which he highlighted several of the ideas presented by many of the 30 speakers in 40 different lectures and discussion panels. In this context, one of Brown's highlights was the contributions presented by different researchers on the need to address comprehensive biological strategies that have the ecosystems in the soil, on leaves, and within the plant, as their core. 

“Al igual que los biofertilizantes y los biopesticidas, los bioestimulantes están empezando a ser usados masivamente. Estamos en una ventana donde la aceptación se está produciendo”.

Brown highlights the important growth of the biological industry and how biostimulants are joining biocontrols and biofertilizers in the widespread use in crops. This, despite their challenges in being tested and validated. "These products are used in a background of environmental stress, which is highly diverse and highly unpredictable," says Brown. "There is always the question of whether we are dealing with snake oils or whether they are really valuable inputs to the agrochemical environment. . I think increasingly it's evident that just as biofertilizers and biopesticides have played a role, biostimulants now are starting to come into the mainstream. Now it's not without its problems. It's not without its uncertainties. But we are in a window where acceptance is occurring. And it's actually a place where there's a great degree of obligation on the producers of these products to make sure that they are indeed biorational. Otherwise, you will end up destroying your own market with products that are not worthwhile."

Biostimulants and their anti-stress function

Brown highlighted in his conclusions the reasons why nearly 1,500 attendees from 20 other countries participated during the two-day congress held at the Westin Hotel in Lima.

Against this background, and citing the presentation by Spanish scientist Enrique Monte, Brown points out that "what biostimulants are probably doing is rebuilding the natural resistance and that natural resiliency of the system. That's how they approach and influence plant stress mitigation."

On this point, Brown stresses that, as seen in several of the talks during the Congress, this is probably largely due to an interaction with the microbiome. "I think we've underappreciated how the microbiome is a fundamental part of the evolution and the resiliency and the adaptation of crops," he says. "The Microbiome hypothesis simply says that microbes in the environment serve as the sensing mechanism for plants. They also serve as some of the response mechanisms for plants in a feedback loop. You might, of course, ask, why would microbes do that? The answer for that, of course, is they have co-evolved with plants for the last 500 million years and it is in their interest for the photosynthetic plant to continue to be productive because that's ultimately the source of all food on earth."

“Creo que hemos subestimado cómo el microbioma es una parte fundamental de la evolución, de la resistencia y de la adaptación de los cultivos”

It is this, Brown points out, which allows that when one arrives at a natural ecosystem, productivity is tremendously higher. "It is higher because in this system there are individuals that can fill every niche, individuals that can respond to environmental changes. A drought, for one, is an opportunity for another. A flood for one is an opportunity for another. A phosphorus shortage is an opportunity, etc" he says. In these systems, he adds, there is always an individual that can take advantage of that particular condition, in which soil microbes are fundamental to this process. 

Growth drivers 

Brown highlighted in his conclusions the reasons why nearly 1,500 attendees from 20 different countries participated during the two-day congress held at the Westin Hotel in Lima. 

"The reason we are here is because of the tremendous growth that this industry has registered, and it continues to grow at 10-15% annually," he says. "It's an exciting industry and one that has made a lot of progress in the last 15 years." 

Brown highlighted some insights from Matthew Meisnerof Farmer Business Network to explain the factors driving this expansion. In this he highlights the opportunity for greater profitability for the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and agricultural industries. To this he adds the increase in the price of conventional farm inputs, such as fertilizers, as well as the greater resistance to traditional chemicals. "When I talk to farmers, I see this as one of the driving forces: farmers are aware that agrochemicals and fertilizers are harmful, so they are looking for alternatives. Stimulants, biofertilizers seem to have attracted attention to that end," he says. Add to this the decreasing innovation in traditional chemistry for new agricultural challenges and an increasing demand by large agricultural customers, such as supermarkets and other buyers, to develop a biorational and biosecure industry. 

This has driven a strong movement of innovation and start-ups, "as well as sharks that are interested in bringing in smaller players, and that has driven a tremendous process of consolidation."  

Blurred borders are becoming more and more blurred

Brown adds to this the increasingly noticeable effects of climate change and new sources of abiotic stresses facing plants, which is where bio-simulants come into play. He explains that the yield potential of a crop is defined by genetics, by the environment, by the availability of sun and water, and other elements. "But as you go through the season, events occur and yield is lost, such that the final realized yield is never as much as the full potential," he says. "The theoretical place where biostimulants work is at this yield adaptation, yield mitigation step, irrespective of whether it's through heat stress tolerance, or water stress tolerance, or nutrient deficiency effects. These are all versions of stress." 

This is a different scope than that traditionally assigned to biocontrols and biofertilizers, concepts that are used in the market to identify the different categories of biologicals.  He points out that current regulations treat them as separate products, even though the boundaries between them in agricultural use are increasingly blurred. "We have certainly seen that biofertilizers and biostimulants are merging," he says. In that he highlighted the presentation by Colombian scientist Alba Marina Cotes. “These products work together, they are a continuum, as we saw in the lovely presentation by Dr Alba Marina Cotes, who illustrated how these pieces work together. It's not just the plant genome and the ability of plants to grow and synthesize hormones. It is a network of microbes and plants working together to create the basis used, the optimal synergy and effectiveness of the system as a whole," she says.

“Estos productos trabajan en conjunto, son un continuo, tal como lo vimos en la excelente presentación de la Dr Alba Marina Cotes, quien ilustró como estas piezas trabajan juntas. No es sólo el genoma de las plantas y la capacidad de éstas para crecer y sintetizar hormonas. Es una red de microbios y plantas que trabajan juntos para crear la base utilizada, la sinergia óptima y la eficacia del sistema en su conjunto”

Another example of this was in the Trichoderma talk, given by Dr Enrique Monte. "It was very interesting to see the whole broad spectrum of effects that Trichoderma can have: it can be parasitism, it can be antibiotics, it can be enzymatic and microbial control. It could be competition. Also, it can be biostimulation. And we see that with many of the very active soil microbes have this multifunctional effect that speaks to the ecosystem effect that we're talking about."

 Holistic effects

Brown also highlighted the presentations on humic substances, and the broad spectrum of effects they can have on plants and their ecosystem, as Spanish scientist David de Hita pointed out in his presentation.  "We saw a suggestion here that sometimes the effects are holistic. You can have an effect above ground. You can have an effect below ground and an integrated result that is greater than the sum of the parts," he says. ""There were many cases at the Congress where speakers focused on the effects of biostimulants on microbial populations. They illustrated how an all-natural system is abundant in microbial diversity, whereas a degraded system, such as most of our agricultural systems are, is depleted of many microorganisms. They pointed out how you can potentially manipulate that rhizosphere, how you can manage the soil to return it back to its original natural health."." 

“Hubo muchos casos en el Congreso en los que los ponentes se centraron en los efectos de los bioestimulantes en las poblaciones microbianas. Ilustraron cómo un sistema totalmente natural es abundante en diversidad microbiana, mientras que un sistema degradado, tal como lo son la mayoría de nuestros sistemas agrícolas, está agotado en muchos microorganismos”

In this regard Browne raised a question that can serve as a basis for further research. "If this is true, one could assume that a fully functional and healthy soil would not respond to a biostimulant, because it doesn't need to replace the depleted. And that would make for an interesting series of experiments to see if that is in fact true," he explains. 

Universes and definitions to discover

On algae, Brown pointed out that there are only five or six species of algae that are used in the biostimulant industry, highlighting a fact from Dr. Izabella MichalakThis despite the fact that there are "over 6,000 red and brown algae, as well as about 80,000 microalgae," he says. "So there's a tremendous amount of opportunity there. There's also opportunity in the way we do extractions."

He noted that at the Congress there were talks on hydrolyzed proteins as biostimulants, even though they are used very little in the U.S. and North America in general. He added silicon and the difficulty of defining its functions. Quoting Brazilian scientist Fabrício Ávila Rodrigues, who gave two silicon presentations at the conference, Brown noted that "these showed that silicon has nutritional, biostimulant, pathogenic functions." This brought him back to the regulatory aspect. According to the 2019 European regulation, a biostimulant is a fertilizer product independent of its nutrient content. "So now think about silicon. It's like, okay, it can't be a nutrient, and yet it's a unique element, which by all definitions would make it a nutrient. We're stuck in this silly circle." 

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