What problems are growers facing?
Adverse weather conditions and unpredictable growing season are leaving the worlds food supply more susceptible to abiotic stress than ever before. Intense heat, little precipitation and unforeseen frost events are impacting growers around the world.
How do abiotic stresses (cold, heat & drought) affect crops?
Abiotic stresses cause the loss of major crop plants worldwide leading to decreased yields, a reduction in crop quality and diminishing food supply.
How is Brandon Bioscience helping plants improve abiotic stress tolerance?
Brandon Bioscience has produced its abiotic stress tolerance solutions from Ascophyllum nodosum concentration, using a proprietary hot aqueous extraction process. These solutions defend crops from abiotic stress and is proven to ensure high yields in unfavorable conditions. They help crops cope and recover from prolonged adverse stress conditions, particularly heat, cold, and drought stress through the accumulation of stress protective proteins and metabolites. When applied to crops, it stimulates an increase in the upregulation of genes that are part of a plants natural abiotic stress defense mechanisms.
At Brandon Bioscience, we have found an abundance of PSI 494 molecular signature, which is particularly effective in counteracting the effects of heat stress in crops. Heat stress impacts a plants metabolism, leading to a reduction in crop biomass and yields. In crops grown under heat stress, our solutions increase expression of heat shock proteins, which act as a first line of defense for the crop, enhancing a crops tolerance to heat stress. Heat shock proteins accumulate in a plant so protein homeostasis can be re-established, which is disrupted due to rising temperatures. Through this defense mechanism, crop fertility, photosynthetic capabilities and overall yield is better protected.
In crops grown where drought stress is prevalent, PSI 494 increases the expression of dehydrins proteins, which increase a crops resilience during periods of drought. Dehydrin proteins are key elicitors during dehydration stress as they stabilize cell membranes and biomolecules, aid in free radicle oxygenated species (ROS) scavenging and sequester water molecules to the cells, .
PSI 494 application has also demonstrated an improvement in calcium mobility in crops suffering from abiotic stresses. This positive effect makes it suitable for calcium tank mixing.
Using a heat stress model at reproductive stage in tomato, we observed how the PSI-494 molecular signature, enhanced fruit set during heat stress. Pollen viability can be reduced by up to 80% because of heat stress. In treated stressed plants, pollen viability was increased by 3.2 – 4.4 times compared to stress untreated plants. Fruit number is positively affected, with data showing an increase of 86%, compared to untreated stressed crops.
For drought stress, PSI 494 has shown to increase yield by 27% in stressed treated plants, compared to untreated stressed plants. Water level losses were reduced by 11.8%. Trial data shows how it maintains plant growth with no wilting damage to leaves and increases the chlorophyll content, which is known to establish photosynthetic capacity of leaves, leading to accelerated growth recovery.
PSI 494 is field proven to enhance crop tolerance mechanisms against abiotic stresses while maintaining crop quality and yields.
