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Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics?

There is growing interest in using plant-beneficial microorganisms to partially replace chemicals and help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. Formulated microbial products or inoculants for agriculture contain single strains or a consortium of live microbes, well characterized and biosa...

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Autores principales: Sanjuán, Juan, Nápoles, Maria Caridad, Pérez-Mendoza, Daniel, Lorite, María J., Rodríguez-Navarro, Dulce N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9867170/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36677445
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms11010153
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author Sanjuán, Juan
Nápoles, Maria Caridad
Pérez-Mendoza, Daniel
Lorite, María J.
Rodríguez-Navarro, Dulce N.
author_facet Sanjuán, Juan
Nápoles, Maria Caridad
Pérez-Mendoza, Daniel
Lorite, María J.
Rodríguez-Navarro, Dulce N.
author_sort Sanjuán, Juan
collection PubMed
description There is growing interest in using plant-beneficial microorganisms to partially replace chemicals and help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. Formulated microbial products or inoculants for agriculture contain single strains or a consortium of live microbes, well characterized and biosafe, which can contribute to the growth, health, and development of a plant host. This concept conforms to the definition of probiotics. However, some plant-growth-promoting microorganisms (PGPMs) have been considered a category of biostimulants since some years ago, despite the traditional concept of biostimulants involves substances or materials with no fertilizer value, which in minute amounts promote plant growth. The inclusion of PGPMs together with substances has also involved a significant distortion of the classical concept of biostimulants. Regulations such as the recent EU Fertilizing Products Regulation (EU No. 2019/1009) have incorporated the new definition of biostimulants and included microbials as a subcategory of biostimulants. We discuss that this regulation and the forthcoming European harmonized standards disregard some key features of microbial products, such as the live, true biological nature of their active principles. The factors that determine the complex functional compatibility of plant–microbe associations, and important biosafety issues that concern the intentional release of microbes into the environment, seem to be also ignored. We anticipate that by equating microbials to chemicals, the biological nature of microbial products and their specific requirements will be underestimated, with pernicious consequences for their future development and success.
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spelling pubmed-98671702023-01-22 Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics? Sanjuán, Juan Nápoles, Maria Caridad Pérez-Mendoza, Daniel Lorite, María J. Rodríguez-Navarro, Dulce N. Microorganisms Review There is growing interest in using plant-beneficial microorganisms to partially replace chemicals and help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. Formulated microbial products or inoculants for agriculture contain single strains or a consortium of live microbes, well characterized and biosafe, which can contribute to the growth, health, and development of a plant host. This concept conforms to the definition of probiotics. However, some plant-growth-promoting microorganisms (PGPMs) have been considered a category of biostimulants since some years ago, despite the traditional concept of biostimulants involves substances or materials with no fertilizer value, which in minute amounts promote plant growth. The inclusion of PGPMs together with substances has also involved a significant distortion of the classical concept of biostimulants. Regulations such as the recent EU Fertilizing Products Regulation (EU No. 2019/1009) have incorporated the new definition of biostimulants and included microbials as a subcategory of biostimulants. We discuss that this regulation and the forthcoming European harmonized standards disregard some key features of microbial products, such as the live, true biological nature of their active principles. The factors that determine the complex functional compatibility of plant–microbe associations, and important biosafety issues that concern the intentional release of microbes into the environment, seem to be also ignored. We anticipate that by equating microbials to chemicals, the biological nature of microbial products and their specific requirements will be underestimated, with pernicious consequences for their future development and success. MDPI 2023-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9867170/ /pubmed/36677445 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms11010153 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Sanjuán, Juan
Nápoles, Maria Caridad
Pérez-Mendoza, Daniel
Lorite, María J.
Rodríguez-Navarro, Dulce N.
Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics?
title Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics?
title_full Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics?
title_fullStr Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics?
title_full_unstemmed Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics?
title_short Microbials for Agriculture: Why Do They Call Them Biostimulants When They Mean Probiotics?
title_sort microbials for agriculture: why do they call them biostimulants when they mean probiotics?
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9867170/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36677445
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms11010153
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