SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Professor Giuseppe Colla, Tuscia University (bio)

Full professor in Horticulture at the Department DAFNE, University of Tuscia, Viterbo (Italy).  Visiting scientist at the Department of Vegetable Crops at University of California, Davis and Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Purdue University. Teaching activity at the University of Tuscia on Vegetable Crop Production. Main research areas: plant nutrition, biostimulants, and stress tolerance. Member of Italian Society of Horticulture; Member of the International Society of Horticultural Science; Member of the Editorial Board of International Scientific Journals. Coordinator and principal investigator in many research projects on Horticulture funded by EU, Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, Italian Ministry of Education, Ateneo Italo-Tedesco, Private Companies, etc. Author or co-author of more than 150 publications in national and international journals.

Professor Youssef Rouphael,
University of Naples (bio)

Youssef Rouphael born in Ras-Baalbeck (Lebanon), is an Italian citizen and was awarded a Diploma in Agriculture in 1995 at the University Holy-Spirit of Kaslik (USEK), Lebanon, a Post-Graduate Specialization Program (DSPU) in 1996 on Land and Water Resources Management: Irrigated Agriculture, Mediterranean Agronomic Institute (MAI) of Bari , Italy, a Master in Irrigation in 1997 from MAI Bari, Italy, and a PhD in Horticulture in 2003 from the University of Tuscia, Viterbo Italy. He was then a Post-Doc fellow at the same University for 5 years (2003-2008). Later Prof. Rouphael was Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Veterinary Medicine (Lebanese University); and finally has been, since 2014, affiliated at the Department of Agricultural Sciences, University Federico II Naples (Italy) as RTD-b. From August 2015 to January 2016 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops Großbeeren/Erfurt (Germany). He is an Associate Professor of Horticulture at the University of Naples, Federico II.

The main research activity and interests of Youssef Rouphael focus on vegetables grafting, plant nutrition, soilless culture and plant biostimulants. Youssef Rouphael teaches several courses such as protected cultivation, vegetable crops production, soilless culture and has supervised several Master and PhD students. He has received many research funds and grants from national and international authorities.

– Guest Editor of the Special Issue ‘Biostimulants in Horticulture’. Scientia Horticulturae: Volume 196, Pages 1-134 (30 November 2015) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03044238/196

– Guest Editor of the Research Topic ‘Biostimulants in Agriculture’. Frontiers in Plant Science. https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/6502/biostimulants-in-agriculture

– Guest Editor of the Special Issue ‘Toward a Sustainable Agriculture Through Plant Biostimulants: From Experimental Data to Practical Applications’ Agronomy MDPI. https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/special_issues/plant_biostimulants

Editor in Chief of Agronomy and Associate Editor of Scientia Horticulturae, Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, The Open Agriculture Journal (Bentham Open) and Italus Hortus. He obtained different honors and awards among them Best Paper Award 2018 of Agronomy (MDPI). In October ,2019 he had published 232 publications indexed in SCOPUS (author ID 8377881200) with a total number of citations of 5571 and a h-index of 44.

 

Professor Luigi Lucini, Catholic University of
the Sacred Heart (bio)

Luigi Lucini is associate professor at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, in the area “Agricultural Chemistry”; his teaching duties are Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry. Luigi is responsible for the facility of proteomics and metabolomics at the faculty of Environmental, Food and Agricultural Sciences. He coordinates research in the field of plant science and food science, and the most of scientific interest is devoted to plant response to abiotic stresses, plant-microbe interaction, food quality & nutraceuticals, food traceability as well as plant biostimulants. Since 2009, L. Lucini has authored 118 manuscripts in ISI/Scopus international Journals and tutored MSc and PhD students. Research activities have been conducted both from public fundings and contract research with national and international companies. Luigi is vice-president of the GRIFA (italian research group on agrochemicals) and responsible of quality assurance for there each centres of his faculty.

Petronia Carillo,
Full Professor of Agronomy University of Campania (bio)

Full professor of Agronomy at the Department DiSTABiF, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Caserta (Italy).  Visiting scientist at the Botanical Institute of Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg Germany, and Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology of Golm-Potsdam Germany. Teaching activity at the University of Campania on Agronomy, Plant physiology and Post-harvest physiology. Main research areas: metabolic and physiological responses of species of agronomic interest to nutrient deficiency, salt stress, type of cultivation and biostimulants. Member of Italian Society of Horticulture; Member of the Italian Society of Agronomy; Member of the Editorial Board of International Scientific Journals, and reviewer of research projects for international programs. Coordinator and principal investigator in many research projects on physiology of horticultural and agronomic crops funded by EU, DAAD, Italian Ministry of Education, Regione Campania and University of Campania. Author or co-author of more than 110 publications in international journals.

Next webinar april 19th
rasberry

THE ROLE OF SILICON IN AGRICULTURE. PART 2. BIOSTIMULANT EFFECTS AND IMPROVEMENT OF CROP RESISTANCE TO BIOTIC STRESS

Henk-Maarten Laane, MD, PhD
Director R & D Rexil Agro, Weesp-Amsterdam

rasberry

THE ROLE OF SILICON IN AGRICULTURE. PART 1. PLANT UPTAKE, PRODUCTS, AND APPLICATIONS

Henk-Maarten Laane, MD, PhD
Director R & D Rexil Agro, Weesp-Amsterdam

rasberry

BIOCHELATES FOR A SUSTAINABLE IRON NUTRITION IN AGRICULTURE

By: Monica Yorlady Alzate Zuluaga1, Mariateresa Cardarelli2, Youssef Rouphael3, Stefano Cesco1, Youry Pii1*, Giuseppe Colla1 1Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen/Bolzano, I-39100 Bolzano, Italy 2Department of Agriculture and Forestry Science, University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy 3Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples ‘Federico II’, 80055 Portici, Italy

grapevine

ANIMAL VERSUS PLANT-DERIVED PROTEIN HYDROLYSATES: DIFFERENT COMPOSITION AND MECHANISMS OF ACTION

By: Giovanna Marta Fusco, Rosalinda Nicastro, Pasqualina Woodrow, Petronia Carillo, Department of Environmental, Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies, University of Campania, “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 81100 Caserta, Italy

grapevine

ROLE OF FOLIAR BIOSTIMULANTS (OF PLANT ORIGIN) ON GRAPEVINE ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGEE

By: Luigi Bavaresco1, Ginevra Canavera1, Maria Giulia Parisi1, Luigi Lucini2, 1Dept. of Sustainable Crop Production, 2Dept of Sustainable Food Process, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 29122 Piacenza, Italy.

leaf water biostimulant

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT BIOSTIMULANT AND TO ASSESS ITS PERFORMANCE AT FARM LEVEL

By: Giuseppe Colla1,2, Paolo Bonini3, Youssef Rouphael4, Mariateresa Cardarelli1 : 1department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy, 2Arcadia srl, Rivoli Veronese, Italy, 3oloBion S.L., Barcelona, Spain, 4Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples “Federico II”.

sead treatment

SEED TREATMENTS WITH MICROORGANISMS AND THEIR BENEFICIAL EFFECTS ON CROPS

By: Mariateresa Cardarelli, Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy

current assessment of the effectiveness of biostimulants

CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BIOSTIMULANTS

By: Danny Geelen, HortiCell, Ghent University, Coupure links, 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium

Plant of onion

THE USE OF BIOSTIMULANTS TO CONTROL BERRY CRACKING IN SWEET CHERRY

By: Alessandro Mataffo, Pasquale Scognamiglio, Boris Basile, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, 80055 Portici, Italy

Plant of onion

SYNERGISTIC INTERACTIONS AMONG BIOSTIMULANTS AND EFFECTS ON PRODUCTIVITY AND QUALITY OF CROPS

By: Maria Giordano, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, 80055 Portici, Italy

lettuce hydroponic culture

USE OF BIOSTIMULANTS IN HYDROPONIC CULTURE

By: Athanasios Koukounaras, Filippos Bantis, Papoui Eleni, Department of Horticulture, Aristotle University, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

lettuce red and green

UNDERSTANDING GENOTYPE X BIOSTIMULANT INTERACTION IS ESSENTIAL FOR DEVELOPING BIOSTIMULANT APPLICATION PROGRAMS TO IMPROVE TARGETED CROP TRAITS

By: Francesco Cristofano, Christophe El-Nakhel,Department of Agricultural Sciences, Università degli studi di Napoli ‘Federico II’, Portici (Italy) s

Indian_rice

BIOSTIMULANTS IN AGRICULTURE: AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE

By: K. K. Meena and Pradeep Kumar*, Division of Integrated Farming System, ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur, INDIA s

BIOSTIMULANTS AND PLANT HEALTH PRODUCTS FOR TURF SYSTEMS: CURRENT AND FUTURE USE TRENDS

By: Cale Bigelow, Mike Fidanza, Erik Ervin, and Xunzhong Zhang Purdue University-Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, University of Delaware-Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Virginia Tech-School of Plant and Environmental Sciences

IMPACT OF BIOSTIMULANTS ON CROP PRODUCTION’S PROFITABILITY

By: Attilio Coletta, Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy

COULD MICROBIAL BIOSTIMULANTS IMPROVE FOOD FUNCTIONAL QUALITY?

By: Paola Ganugi, Erika Martinelli,  Luigi Lucini, Department for Sustainable Food Process, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy

CHITOSAN AS PLANT BIOSTIMULANT IN MODERN HORTICULTURE

By: Mohamad Hesam Shahrajabian, Spyridon A. Petropoulos, Department of Agriculture, Crop Production and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly, Fytokou Street, 38446, Volos, Greece

DECIPHERING THE TRICHODERMA-PLANT DIALOG, IMPORTANCE OF ROOT EXUDATES

By: Sarai Esparza-Reynoso and José López-Bucio, Instituto de Investigaciones Químico-Biológicas, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, Michoacán, México.

PLANT GROWTH-PROMOTING RHIZOBACTERIA AS PLANT BIOSTIMULANTS TO IMPROVE MINERAL NUTRITION AND RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY

By: Youry Pii, Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen, Italy

BIOSTIMULANTS AS A SAFEGUARD TO PLANTS AGAINST POOR NITROGEN SUPPLY

By: Seunghyun Choi and Hye-Ji Kim, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, United States

BIOSTIMULANTS FOR CHEMICAL PRIMING AS A STRESS MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR CROPS

By: Luciano Pasqualoto Canellas and Fábio Lopes Olivares, Núcleo de Desenvolvimento de Insumos Biológicos para a Agricultura (NUDIBA), Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENF), Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

PLANT UPTAKE OF AMINO ACIDS AND PEPTIDES

By: Joshua R. Widhalm, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University

Amino acids are vital building blocks for synthesizing proteins in all organisms. In plants, free “proteinogenic” amino acids serve additional roles in the assimilation and transport of nitrogen, as signaling compounds, as osmolytes, and as precursors for making various hormones, cofactors, and other major compounds like chlorophyll.

USE OF BIOSTIMULANTS TO INCREASE FRUIT CROP PERFORMANCES

By: Carlo Andreotti  and Boris Basile 

The fruit industry is actively searching for new technologies to increase the sustainability of the production systems and to improve the final quality of fresh produce. Biostimulants are bio-technological innovations that can bridge together different bio-based industries in the perspective of a more circular economy.

METABOLOMICS AND ITS POTENTIAL TO UNDERSTAND THE MODE OF ACTION OF PLANT BIOSTIMULANTS

By: Luigi Lucini
Catholic University of Piacenza, Italy

Although plenty of literature is supporting the benefits related to the use of biostimulants, the molecular mechanisms underlying such positive effects are still poorly elucidated. Nonetheless, the comprehension of the mode of action through which biostimulants exert their activity can provide useful insights to better define the target(s) in terms of crops, claims, agricultural practices and timing of application.

CAN MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES?

By: Manuela Giovannetti
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environoment, University of Pisa, Italy

Beneficial soil microorganisms play a key role in sustainable agriculture, by promoting the completion of biogeochemical cycles, maintaining long-term soil fertility, reducing the input of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, boosting plant nutrition and health. Among them, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi (AMF), members of the Glomeromycotina, are a well represented group of microbes, establishing mutualistic symbioses with more than 80% of land plants, including the major food crops, from cereals to legumes, fruit trees, vegetables, medicinal plants and economically relevant species, such as sunflower, cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, tea and cocoa.

HIGH-THROUGHPUT AUTOMATED PHENOTYPING AS A SHORTCUT TO MORE EFFECTIVE BIOSTIMULANTS: FROM SEEDS TO CROPS

By: Mirella Sorrentino, Nuria de Diego, Giuseppe Colla, Lukáš Spíchal, Youssef Rouphael and Klára Panzarová

Development of highly effective biostimulants requires an accurate evaluation of the effects of candidate products on morpho-physiological traits of selected crops during different developmental stages and environmental conditions. As conventional screening methods are time consuming, destructive and labour intensive, high-throughput plant phenotyping procedures were recently proposed as effective and high-precision tools for novel product screening.

PLANT BIOSTIMULANTS AND MITIGATION OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN CROP PRODUCTION

By: Andrea Colantoni & Sara Rajabihamedani
Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences, University of Tuscia, Italy

Biostimulants have an outstanding potential for sustainable development of the agricultural sector due to their ability to manage productivity and increase nutrient use efficiency in crop productions.

MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI AS PLANT BIOSTIMULANTS

By: Youssef Rouphael
Department of Agriculture, University of University of Naples Federico II, Italy

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are among the more beneficial microorganisms used as biostimulants in agriculture. What makes the use of AMF more widespread than most equally beneficial symbionts is that they are able to establish a symbiosis with almost all higher plants and are able to growth in wide range of climatic conditions. 

PROTEIN HYDROLYSATES AS PLANT BIOSTIMULANTS

By: Giuseppe Colla
Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences, University of Tuscia, Italy

Protein hydrolysates (PHs) are a group of plant biostimulants that are produced by enzymatic and/or chemical hydrolysis and contain a mixture of peptides and amino acids. They may also contain other compounds that may contribute to their biostimulant action, such as carbohydrates, phenols, mineral elements, phytohormones and other organic compounds.

MORE ARTICLES TO COME!

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