Benjamin Albert, R&D Biostimulants Project Leader at Agrauxine, explains biostimulation and the special features of Smartfoil biostimulant.
What do biosolutions, which include products such as biostimulants, mean on today's market?
Today, biosolutions available on the market can be divided into two distinct categories: biocontrol products and biostimulation products, more commonly known as biostimulants.
The first are designed to protect crops against biological pests, replacing conventional plant protection products. They may be bioherbicides, biofungicides, bioinsecticides or bionematicides.
The latter stimulate natural processes in plants and soils to improve crop yield and quality, enhance tolerance to abiotic stress (i.e. environmental conditions such as drought, excess water, frost, salinity, etc.), facilitate nutrient assimilation and efficiency, and promote soil biological activity.
Biostimulants can be very varied in nature: plant or algae extracts, microorganisms and their derivatives (mainly fungi and bacteria), amino acids and protein hydrolysates, humic or assimilated substances, other biomolecules (phytohormones, enzymes, vitamins, saccharides, etc.).
Agrauxine's Smartfoil solution is a biostimulant based on yeast fermentation metabolites. Could you tell us more about this product and its mode of action?
What sets Smartfoil apart from competing solutions is the fact that it is one of the few biostimulants derived from yeast. This makes it a unique and highly complex product, rich in numerous natural constituents known to participate in plant resistance responses to abiotic stress, such as amino acids like proline or phytohormones like abscisic acid.
Smartfoil can act at different levels in the plant: genetic (overexpression of genes of interest), metabolic (accumulation of osmoprotective or antioxidant molecules) and physiological (preservation of cell turgor in particular).
A single foliar application at the critical stage of the crop stimulates the plant's internal metabolism, mitigates the impact of stress and, ultimately, secures the final yield.