Advanced Approaches Identifying Novel Nutrient-Use-Enhancing Biostimulants

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Background

Agriculture faces complex challenges: high productivity is essential to meet the increasing global food demand, while fertilizer use should be reduced to minimize adverse effects on the environment and biodiversity. Phosphorus and nitrogen are two important macronutrients applied through fertilizers. However, phosphorus despite its omnipresence in fertilizers, is often unavailable for plants as most of the applied phosphorus is rapidly bound as recalcitrant organophosphates or fixed with metals rendering the phosphorus unavailable for plants. Nitrogen may leach into the groundwater with far-reaching impacts on the environment. Moreover, it enters the microbial nitrogen cycle when not used by the plants, leading to, amongst others, nitrous oxide emissions. In Europe, this accounts for 43% of the agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (EEA, 2020), contributing significantly to climate change. Different worldwide actions aim to reduce nutrient losses. For example, Europe and its “Farm to Fork” and “Green Deal” initiatives aim to reduce nutrient losses by at least 50% by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050 respectively (EC, 2020).

To achieve this reduction, disruptive changes in agricultural practices and technological innovations will be necessary. Novel nutrient use enhancing plant biostimulants are in this respect quite attractive: they can be relatively easily applied to the field and affect any crop of interest or its rhizosphere. Here, we define a biostimulant in its broadest sense, i.e., a product stimulating plant nutrition processes independently of the product’s nutrient content with the sole aim of improving one or more of the following characteristics of the plant or the plant rhizosphere: (a) nutrient use efficiency; (b) availability of confined nutrients in soil or rhizosphere; (c) tolerance to abiotic stress; and (d) quality traits (EU, 2019). They do have a high potential. Nitrification inhibitors, for example, although senso stricto no biostimulants, but covered by the abovementioned definition, target nitrifying microbes and prevent the entering of ammonium in the nitrogen cycle. As a result, they increase nitrogen availability for the plants and, of utmost importance as well, efficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Both in Europe and US, they are recommended as a climate change mitigation tool. The use of other biostimulants targeting different- or complementary pathways could only further reduce nutrient losses.

Recent scientific and technological advances, including high-throughput screening or automated phenotyping developments, contribute to innovative and efficient methods for identifying or evaluating new biostimulant traits or claims. Moreover, rational approaches to establishing new candidate biostimulants constantly increase the portfolio of screenable products or candidate biostimulants. Therefore, in this Research Topic, we intend to collect both research and review articles that apply, study or discuss certain aspects in identifying novel nutrient use enhancing biostimulants. As such, we aim to further advance or provoke research that may contribute to cutting back nutrient losses. We invite contributions covering one or more of, but not limited to, the following aspects:


• Knowledge that could inspire screening concepts or selection of biomarkers, for example concerning nutrient signaling pathways, nutrient use efficiency increasing mechanisms, or nutrient responses.
• Innovative strategies to select candidate biostimulants.
• Technological innovations to enable efficient phenotype-based or smart read-outs.
• High-throughput screening approaches.
• Advanced methods for characterization of novel biostimulants mode of action.
• Advanced ways of processing, analysis, and interpretation of data, which become more and more big data due to current state-of-the-art high-throughput imaging or other read-out approaches. In this respect, we also welcome contributions on dealing with processes of data FAIRification.


Topics may concern microbial or non-microbial biostimulants, including natural products, small molecules, extracts, enzymatic or specific microbial inhibitors, etc.


Note: descriptive studies or reports that merely test new candidate biostimulants without advances in the selection, screening, or phenotyping methods or without functional characterization of the biostimulant are out of the scope of this Research Topic and will not be considered for review.


EEA – European Environment Agency (2020). EEA greenhouse gas – data viewer. Data viewer on greenhouse gas emissions and removals, sent by countries to UNFCCC and the EU Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism (EU Member States).

EC – European Commission (2020). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, A Farm to Fork Strategy: For a Fair, Healthy and Environmentally Food System. COM (2020) 381 final, 18 p + Annex.

EU – European Union (2019). REGULATION (EU) 2019/1009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 5 June 2019 laying down rules on the making available on the market of EU fertilising products and amending Regulations (EC) No 1069/2009 and (EC) No 1107/2009 and repealing Regulation (EC) No 2003/2003. OJ L 170, p. 1–114

Keywords: Biostimulants, Nutrients, Nutrient-Use-Efficiency, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Phenotyping, High-Throughput Screening

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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