Background According to the most popular definition, a biostimulant is any substance or microorganism applied to plants with the aim to enhance nutrition efficiency, abiotic stress tolerance and/or crop quality traits, regardless of its nutrient content. Therefore, a biostimulant can help crops to withstand abiotic stress, while maintaining or even increasing productivity. We have previously designed a sequential system, based on two different model organisms, the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, to evaluate the potential of different natural extracts as biostimulants employing a blind-test strategy. Results In this report, we further expand this concept to evaluate different biostimulants in a combinatorial approach to reveal the potential additive, synergistic or antagonistic effects of different combinations of biostimulants in order to design new formulations with enhanced effects on plant growth or tolerance to abiotic stress. The method is based on yeast assays (growth tests in solid medium, and continuous growth in liquid cultures) and plant assays (mass accumulation in hydroponic culture) to assess effects on early growth. Conclusions With this novel approach, we have designed new formulations and quantified the ability to enhance growth and promote biomass accumulation under normal conditions and in the presence of abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity or cold. This method enables a fast screen of many different products in a combinatorial manner, in order to design novel formulations of natural extracts with biostimulant potential.
Climate change is increasing drought and salinity in many cultivated areas, therefore threatening food production. There is a great demand for novel agricultural inputs able to maintain yield under the conditions imposed by the anthropogenic global warming. Biostimulants have been proposed as a useful tool to achieve this objective. We have investigated the biostimulant effect of different yucca (Yucca schidigera) extracts on plant growth at different stages of development under different abiotic stress conditions. The extracts were tested in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and in three different crops; tomato (Solanum lycopersicum var microtom), broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa var romana). We have found that the investigated extracts are able to promote germination and early vigor under drought/osmotic and salt stress induced either by sodium chloride or lithium chloride. This effect is particularly strong in Arabidopsis thaliana and in the Brassicaceae broccoli. We have also determined using antibiograms against the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae that the evaluated extracts may be used also as a natural fungicide. The results in this report show that yucca extracts may be used to enhance early vigor in some crops and as a natural fungicide, providing a new and useful tool for farmers.
Potassium humate is a widely used biostimulant known for its ability to enhance growth and improve tolerance to abiotic stress. However, the molecular mechanisms explaining its effects remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the mechanism of action of potassium humate using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We demonstrated that a formulation of potassium humate effectively increased the fresh weight accumulation of Arabidopsis plants under normal conditions, salt stress (sodium or lithium chloride), and particularly under osmotic stress (mannitol). Interestingly, plants treated with potassium humate exhibited a reduced antioxidant response and lower proline accumulation, while maintaining photosynthetic activity under stress conditions. The observed sodium and osmotic tolerance induced by humate was not accompanied by increased potassium accumulation. Additionally, metabolomic analysis revealed that potassium humate increased maltose levels under control conditions but decreased levels of fructose. However, under stress, both maltose and glucose levels decreased, suggesting changes in starch utilization and an increase in glycolysis. Starch concentration measurements in leaves showed that plants treated with potassium humate accumulated less starch under control conditions, while under stress, they accumulated starch to levels similar to or higher than control plants. Taken together, our findings suggest that the molecular mechanism underlying the abiotic stress tolerance conferred by potassium humate involves its ability to alter starch content under normal growth conditions and under salt or osmotic stress.
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