News

The project team has published in June 2021 a series of 3 articles in the web magazine Terre-Net presenting the LIFE STIMUL project. Terre-Net.fr, created in 1997, is a French agricultural information site. Led by a dedicated editorial team, it allows professional farmers to follow the latest news, including the agricultural weather forecast as well as the prices and innovative solutions for crop production.

This series of articles has permitted to present in detail the key results of the LIFE STIMUL project. The first article presents the interest of the biostimulant seed treatment to improve plant resistance and secure the crop potential. The second article focuses on the opportunity offered by the biostimulant to favor the assimilation of nitrogen by the plant and so to limit nitrogen fertilization, which can be a source of pollution. In a last article, agronomic data demonstrating that the biostimulant seed treatment improves the plants resistance to hydric stress and so ultimately permits to optimize water inputs were detailed. In parallel to the online publication, the articles were highlighted in the weekly newsletter of Terre-net, which is distributed to 58,000 readers, mainly farmers.

LIFE STIMUL team has received in the last weeks the harvest data of the corn, soybean and sunflower field trials sowed in spring 2020. The statistical analysis of the data is on-going. These data correspond to the last field trials organized in the framework of LIFE STIMUL project. In total over the last 6 years, 307 field trials were conducted on 6 different crops (corn, soybean, sunflower, wheat, rapeseed and beetroot) in 10 different European countries (France, Italy, Spain, Serbia, Greece, England, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Germany).

In the coming months, the main objective of the project team will be to consolidate all the experimental results to draw clear conclusions regarding the agronomic performances of the biostimulants and the possibility offered by this technology to minimize agricultural inputs.

One of the biostimulant technologies tested in the framework of the LIFE STIMUL project, S-Boost biostimulant from Solvay, was awarded the World Alliance for Efficient Solution label. This label created by the Solar Impulse Foundation led by Bertrand Piccard was designed to “shed light on existing Solutions that are both clean and profitable and have a positive impact on quality of life”. 

S-Boost biostimulant was recognised by the label as a promising solution to favor plant development and ultimately facilitate crop yield improvement while reducing the use of agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and irrigation water. An article was published by Bertrand Piccard for the Solar Impulse Fondation in the French journal “Investir Responsable” in September 2020 to detail the choice of this solution for the label.

Learn more about the Solar Impulse Foundation.

The STIMUL project team has published in April 2020 an article in AgroPages online media presenting the objectives and the key results of the project. AgroPages is the industry's leading online media platform devoted exclusively to the global agricultural business. In parallel, the article was also published in “2020 Formulation & Adjuvant Technology” magazine published in May 2020. 

With these two articles, STIMUL project was able to present to the agrochemical industry the environmental benefits of the novel biostimulant seed coating technology. The articles detail the agronomic performances offered by the biostimulant in terms of yield increase for corn and soybean and the possibility offered by the biostimulant to significantly reduce fertilizer use while maintaining the same yield level for corn.

Read the article.