AgriThority ® Biostimulant Evaluation Challenges
Evaluation of Biostimulants for Plant Stress Tolerance Overcoming Challenges for an Objective Assessment in Field Trials Submitted by Ignacio Colonna, Global Director, Science and Technology
BIOSTIMULANT DEVELOPMENT
EARLY DEVELOPMENT EFFICACY TRIALS
Effective biostimulant development requires: • Careful design of early development Example: Rhizotron study designed to support
Choose the right experiment for product type and stage. Investing in early development trials increases effectiveness of field experiments at later stages. • Rate calibration • Compatibility • Synergies • Early crop response
experiments.
biostimulant root growth claims in registration dossier
• Choice of adequate environmental range
and location number in late development testing.
Control
• Understanding of product efficacy across
Example: Detecting and quantifying early negative effect of mixing Biostimulant with fungicide
Biostimulant
environments, quantify variability in response.
Biostimulant
• Relying on credible, objective assessments
Corn
Fungicide
of in-season crop responses.
• Develop a robust, data-based product
Biostimulant + Fungicide
positioning strategy
Biostimulant
Biostimulant @ optimal rate
Soybean
Biostimulant+ Fungicide
Fungicide Biostimulant + Fungicide
Use of WinRhizo to quantify root growth daily
LATE DEVELOPMENT FIELD TRIALS Expand generated data with counter season experiments, ensure correlation between target and testing environments. • Target the right environment for project. • Design experiments to fit product development AND registration needs. • Maximize information collected from a limited number of sites. • Quantify crop response objectively.
Supplement visual vigor scores with objective crop health indicators. Ground-based NDVI sensors
NDVI = (NIR-VIS)/(NzIR+VIS). –1 to 1 indicator of crop canopy size and activity
Extend data generated via counter season experiments: Correlation between target and testing environments
“ Corn-centered” testing
“Stress-centered” testing
Target area “ Stresscentered” testing
“ Corncentered” testing
10-year average Drought Palmer Index
Weekly NDVI tracking from high-resolution satellite imagery Drought Palmer Index
R2 R5
Coefficient of variation (CV)
V5
Feb 5
Source: AgriThority ® database. 327 trials from 52 projects across NA and LATAM.
Jan 2
Minimize experimental error without restricting environmental range Coefficient of variation (CV) across an environmental range
Dec 10
Corn Acres
Trt Control Distance along trial (m x 10)
Field-scale trials assessment through digital tools Yield response breakout by sub-field environments
* Treatment differences are statistically significant at a=0.15. Analysis based on a mixed spatial model
Coefficient of variation (CV) = Experimental error Std. dev Trial mean
Testing in stressful environments: Abiotic stress in rainfed and managed stress sites
Managed stress environments
Select rainfed environments Subtropical region/higher disease pressure
Digital screening does not eliminate value of true replicates
Yield map
Field Elevation
High drought-heat stress
Moderate drought stress
High yield potential
Moderate drought stress / cool temperature
AGT-21458-C 2021