Global warming has caused significant temperature fluctuations, particularly in warm regions, where colder winters now challenge sectors like agri-food. These shifts, along with rising soil salinity from droughts, have deteriorated crop quality and productivity. The resulting pressure on agriculture highlights the urgent need for new tools to enhance crop resilience under adverse conditions. While synthetic fertilizers are widely used to boost yields, they pose environmental and health risks, contaminating soil, water, and air, and exposing workers and consumers to toxic compounds. Combining chemical fertilizers with bio-based products offers a more sustainable alternative, reducing chemical doses while promoting plant growth and improving yields.
In this context, researchers from the University of Barcelona (UB) have developed a biostimulant based on bacterial strains that offers an effective and safe alternative to current fertilization methods. Specifically, they have created a multistress-resistant biostimulant derived from Pararhizobium sp. strains isolated in their laboratory. This formulation not only enhances crop tolerance to abiotic stresses such as cold, salinity, and drought but also improves overall crop yield, quality, and stability.
The biostimulant has been successfully validated in tomato and rapeseed crops. In tomatoes, it improved yield, cold tolerance, and quality, with positive results in drought and stability tests under greenhouse and field conditions. In rapeseed, it enhanced yield, cold resistance, and salinity tolerance. The Pararhizobium sp. strains are patented (PCT) and stored in a culture collection. Next steps include studying their mechanism of action and testing the biostimulant on additional crops to increase its TRL.
Benefits:
- Effectiveness in protecting against cold, salinity, and drought, which has been demonstrated in crops.
- The technology is based on bacterial strains (Pararhizobium) that have not been reportedly isolated before, hence promoting species diversification.
- Easy to scale, given the fact that the strains are stable and have suitable growth conditions for the industry (between 20 and 30°C).
- It provides an improvement in crop quality and stability in addition to the protection against abiotic stresses.
- It also provides a yield improvement, which has been proven in both rapeseed and tomato crops.
The represented institution is looking for a collaboration that leads to commercial exploitation of the presented invention.
Institution: Universitat de Barcelona
TRL: 5-6
Protection Status: The use of the strains has been patented (PCT) and deposited in a culture collection.
Contacto: Nuria Bas / nuria@viromii.com