Written by cpm
Innate defences against disease come at a hefty price to the plants themselves. CPM finds out how a novel biostimulant mitigates this cost using plant metabolites to prime plant defences and nutrients to sustain them. Like most things in nature, optimal metabolic function is all about balance. By Lucy de la Pasture The link between plant health and nutrition is well known, but the detail is often overlooked. There’s a complex relationship between disease susceptibility, the metabolic processes involved in plant defences and individual nutrients, explains John Haywood, director of Unium BioScience. “At a time when crop protection products are disappearing at a faster rate than new ones can gain approval and resistance in some important fungal pathogens is compromising fungicide performance, understanding the factors that affect the crop’s own metabolic priorities is becoming increasingly important. “Armed with this knowledge, it’s possible to support plant physiology in ways that don’t rely solely on fungicide chemistry,” he says. John Haywood explains that as plants become nutritionally unbalanced, their ability to coordinate a rapid defence response is impaired. What does the science say? “According to the award-winning US scientist, Dr Don Huber, ‘disease can alter plant nutrition whilst plant nutrition can…
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