December 6 kicked off with Timo van der Zwan, a molecular biologist with Canada-based Acadian Plant Health. He spoke about microbial modes of action of alkaline Ascophyllum nodosum extract-based biostimulants, specifically the stimulation of soil health and plant-microbe symbiosis.
Next up was Jean-Christophe Castaing, open innovation director with SOLVAY, who spoke on seed applied biostimulants and how they can be an efficient way to improve resource use efficiency.
Mireia Ibanez, business developer biologicals with KeyGene, presented next, speaking on high throughput targeted sequencing platform for microbial characterization.
Francesca Mangione, biostimulant and plant nutrition R&D specialist with SIPCAM, laid out how to develop a plant biostimulant based on the Redcal case study: From multi-omic profiling to the open field validation.
The first day ended with a presentation from Antoine Grandin, agronomie and nutritions NCS at UMR UCN/INRAE EVA, who presented results from a research project that looked at the development of a drought resistance bioassay.
Day two (7 December) of the virtual congress began with a regulatory outlook from David Beaudreau, executive director with the U.S. Biostimulant Coalition, who outlined the latest regulatory developments for biostimulants in the U.S.
Continuing in the regulatory vein, Julia Emanuela de Souza, regulatory affairs specialist with CropLife Brasil, presented the timeline of and reviewed the current biostimulant policy in Brazil.
Jose Roberto Castro, president of ANPII, presented a Brazilian-based case study on co-inoculation using the PGPR species of Azospirillum brasilense.
The virtual event wrapped with Mohammed El Mehdi El Boukhari, agronomist/PhD student with Mohammed 6 Polytechnic University, who presented information on a study that investigated the effect of Ulva lactuca (sea lettuce) extract as seed-priming agent for tomato plants under optimal and salinity stress growth conditions.
The virtual presentations are available to view HERE: