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Copy link Enhancing Crop Performance with Amino Acid Biostimulants
In today's agricultural landscape, farmers face significant challenges such as climate change, soil degradation, and increasing demand for higher crop yields. Among the essential tools that help address these issues biostimulants have been recently growing in popularity.
Biostimulants enhance crop resilience, improve nutrient uptake, and boost overall plant health. They enable crops to withstand abiotic stresses like drought and extreme temperatures, ensuring sustainable farming practices and securing food production for the future. In today’s agricultural practices, a variety of biostimulants are utilized, but those derived from amino acids stand out as some of the most commonly employed.
How are amino acids produced?
Amino acids used in agriculture come from a variety of sources. They are often derived from plant or animal proteins through hydrolysis, or produced through microbial fermentation and by chemical synthesis. Hydrolysis involves breaking down proteins into their constituent amino acids via enzymatic or chemical processes, resulting in products that contain most or all amino acids along with some peptides, which are small chains of linked amino acids. On the other hand, microbial fermentation uses bacteria to convert a sugar source into specific amino acids, allowing for the creation of tailored formulations with precise functions in plant physiology. These amino acid solutions are then applied to crops through foliar sprays, seed treatments, or soil treatments.
What is the Role of Amino Acids in Plants?
Apart from being building blocks for proteins, amino acids have many different roles in plant physiology. They are involved in various metabolic pathways, hormone production, and the synthesis of secondary metabolites that help plants cope with stress. Specific functions have been so far described for each amino acid.
For example, methionine is a precursor to the plant hormone ethylene, which regulates processes such as senescence, fruit maturation, and color development. The production of ethylene from methionine requires an enzyme and iron as an activator, with cobalt acting as a partial inhibitor. The effects of ethylene can be positive or negative depending on the crop and growth stage. It signals senescence, potentially causing premature leaf loss (a negative effect), but it also plays a role in regulating color development and the maturation of fruits (a positive effect). Therefore, the agronomic knowledge and product function is essential for selecting the right biostimulant for your crop.
How to Select the Right Amino Acid?
Although the physiological processes associated with amino acids are well understood, pinpointing specific functions for each amino acid, particularly when combined, remains a challenge. The effects can vary greatly depending on the crop, type of amino acids used, and the application method and timing. This highlights the importance of thorough field research and repeated trials to fully grasp and optimize their benefits.
Ongoing research continues to reveal new insights, helping us make the most of amino acid use in agriculture. When correctly applied, amino acids offer numerous benefits, such as improved nutrient uptake, enhanced root development, increased chlorophyll synthesis for photosynthesis, better nitrogen utilization efficiency, and higher quality and yield of fruits and vegetables.
Biostimulants Can Mitigate Abiotic Stress
A major benefit of amino acids is their capacity to help plants endure and recover from abiotic stresses like drought, extreme temperatures, salinity, and chemical exposure (phytotoxicity). They achieve this by stabilizing cell membranes, enhancing antioxidant activity, and promoting the synthesis of stress-related proteins.
ICL’s Bioz Moonstone is a prime example of an amino acid-based product that alleviates stress. This cutting-edge product features a mix of essential amino acids that help plants recover from diverse environmental stresses by boosting antioxidant metabolism, and maintaining productivity even under tough conditions.
Biostimulants Support Sustainable Agriculture
The pressure to boost yields in a sustainable manner has never been greater. As restrictions on pesticide use increase and the impact of climate change intensifies, the challenges related to plant stresses are growing too. Therefore, products like Bioz Moonstone, that not only enable crops to thrive under stress conditions but also support sustainable farming practices, are a great tool to foster a more resilient and productive agricultural system.
