News

Global warming continues to intensify abiotic stresses such as extreme temperatures and unpredictable precipitation patterns, severely impacting crop productivity and increasing susceptibility to environmental stresses. Integrated approaches to enhance resilience of crops are now in focus of research for climate proof agriculture. In this context, biostimulants (BSs) have emerged as promising agents to enhance plant resilience by modulating physiological and biochemical processes, thereby improving nutrient use efficiency and strengthening tolerance to suboptimal conditions. While several BS products are already in use within horticulture systems, there remains a strong demand for novel and sustainable BS candidates, particularly those derived from abundant or invasive biological sources, including microorganisms such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and marine organisms such as microalgae and seaweeds.

Biostimulants have been demonstrated to significantly improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in crops, potentially reducing the need for nitrogen fertilizers by up to 25% without compromising yield, and minimizing nitrogen losses. Under optimal conditions, BS application has been associated with yield increases of up to 30%. Nitric oxide (NO) has been identified as a crucial signaling molecule involved in abiotic stress tolerance by modulating key physiological functions and activating stress-responsive genes. Hence, the nitrogen-containing molecules are the focus point when evaluating the bioactivity of biostimulant ingredients.

With this regard, a recent collection of publications edited by our team are currently available in a Special Issue of Plant Stress journal published by Elsevier.

Our goal in this project is to identify and characterize novel BSs, as well as to develop efficient protocols for sustainable and practical application of selected BS candidates. This will be achieved through advanced methodologies, including nanoparticles synthesis and formulations; high-throughput phenotyping and root analysis for precise observation of growth and stress response; high-resolution microscopy for the confirmation of AMF-Plant Root association and localization of signaling molecules to deepen our understanding of BS-induced plant responses to abiotic stresses at both whole-plant and cellular levels.

Several institutes around the globe (Fig. 1) are involved in this project, with a coordination center in MATE, Hungary. This research is funded by resources including the KKP grant of the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The Hungarian Pannonia program, and a European Union AgroServ grant (24-C1-Agro-TNA-029).

Fig. 1: International cooperation map of the institutes involved in this project.

Initial trials of biostimulants application on tomato, cucumber and basil plants have been accomplished and the project is currently at its pick where a relatively large number of plants are being analyzed in PHENOPLNT, Vienna BioCenter Core Facilities (Fig. 2). Top-performing plants under stress conditions will undergo detailed analyses, including transcriptomics, to elucidate the molecular mechanisms associated with the applied biostimulants. 

The project remains open to potential collaborators at MATE as well as international partners with an interest in this line of research.

fig. 2: Basil and cucumber plants treated with different types of biostimulants ready to experience drought and waterlogging stresses, respectively (Iman Mirmazloum, July 2025).

Dr Iman Mirmazloum (PI)