Biostimulants

Overview

Biostimulants are specialist substances that are used to stimulate seeds, helping them to meet their maximum potential and cause regeneration of healthy soil. It is important to note that biostimulants are not fertilizers. Incorporating biostimulants into the hydroseeding mixture reduces the need for traditional fertilisers thanks the positive affects biostimulants have on the soil environment around the seed.

Biostimulants are popular because they contain the bacteria, hormones, soil microbes and nutrients required by new grass plants. As a result, biostimulants work to promote soil microbial activity, resulting in increased soil tilth and nutrient availability.

What are Biostimulants?

Biostimulants are specialist substances that foster plant development from germination to maturity. In the hydroseeding industry, biostimulants are typically used by contractors to stimulate grass seeds.

These mixtures are made up of diverse formulations of compounds, substances and micro-organisms that help improve crop vigour, the size of yields, and quality. The primary difference between biostimulants and fertilisers is that fertilisers provide nutrients as the main function. On the other hand, biostimulants promote plant growth by means beyond just providing nutrients – promoting soil microbial activity, for example.

What do Biostimulants do?

Biostimulants influence metabolic processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, nucleic acid synthesis and ion uptake. After having become extremely popular in the hydroseeding industry, biostimulants have now become increasingly more popular across Europe. Thanks to wide-spread recognition from NGOs, governments and academia, biostimulants are becoming popular in various industries. There are a number of reasons for this. Biostimulants:

• Improve the efficiency of the plant’s metabolism, bringing about increases in yield and crop quality
• Increase the plant’s tolerance to abiotic stress and also aid in their recovery
• Enhance the quality attributes of plants or lawns. They can enhance the depth of colour, sugar content, fruit seeding, etc…
• Enhance soil fertility. This is achieved by fostering the development of complementary soil micro-organisms.

Why use Biostimulants?

Instead of just providing nutrients, biostimulants compliment the cultivation of organisms in the surrounding soils. Biostimulants also differ from crop protection products and are effective in their own right. This is because they act to help the plant’s vigour and stimulate growth – they do not have any direct actions against pests or disease. As a result, this means that crop biostimulation should be complementary to crop nutrition and crop protection. This results in an extremely effective system to stimulate and protect growth.

Biostimulants are a great way to maintain high levels of soil microorganisms and for keeping turf healthy, hardy and thriving during periods of intense stress. However, biostimulants should not be used as a replacement for good agronomic practices, specifically when considering nutrition and protection.