A New Era of Sustainability: Plant Biostimulants 2.0
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 29 June 2024 | Viewed by 318
Special Issue Editor
Interests: Food Science; Plant Science; HPLC-MS/MS
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In recent years, consumer interest in foods obtained from agricultural practices without the use of agrochemicals has been increasing. This is mainly due to a change in consumer perception, which identifies organic farming as a sustainable technique capable of producing foods that are more natural, safer, and promoters of human health. Then again, there is also evidence of increased human intolerance for many of the agrochemicals commonly used in traditional agriculture and occurring in trace amounts as food contaminants in products from agricultural sources.
In response to this problem, the use of biostimulant formulations is proving to be a sustainable and innovative approach to obtaining foods with high nutritional and nutraceutical quality without recourse to the use of agrochemicals. Biostimulants are products of various origins, both plant and animal, aimed at optimizing plant growth. Consequently, they improve not only production yield but also fruit quality and security. It has been widely demonstrated that the application of these formulations can affect both the primary and secondary metabolism, improve productivity, and influence the nutritional value and nutraceutical profile of foods. They also provide improved plant tolerance to adverse conditions. However, the specific mechanisms remain partially unknown.
This Special Issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences aims to present a collection of high-quality original and review articles to inform the scientific community about significant and new information on this topic. In particular, in this Special Issue, the following are welcome:
(a) Original articles evaluating the effect derived from the application of biostimulants in order to increase the resilience of plants to abiotic and biotic stresses. Potential mechanisms of action should be emphasized.
(b) Original articles evaluating the biostimulatory effect of pure compounds or formulations, whether of plant or animal origin, in order to assess potential effects on agronomic yields and food quality.
(c) Articles evaluating the effect of biostimulants on primary and secondary metabolism, and thus on the phytochemical profile, of fruits harvested from treated plants in comparison with untreated plants.
(d) Review articles summarizing the current state of the art.
(e) Metanalyses and bibliometric articles analyzing the trend of the topic in the scientific community at the European or world level.
Dr. Giuseppe Mannino
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- fruit quality
- phytochemical profile
- plant science
- food science
- sustainable agriculture
- biostimulant
- antioxidants
- food security
- microbial biostimulant
- animal-based biostimulant
- plant-based biostimulant
