The 50% reduction in the use of active substances (about 80 active substances) until 2030, foreseen in the EU’s “Farm to Fork” biodiversity strategy, could mean a minimum annual drop of 330 million euros in agricultural income. This political decision could have a strong impact on the economy and the future of several European agri-food sectors, including several crops such as grapes, olives, pears, maize and tomatoes for industry.

This fact, associated with the increase in world population - FAO estimates that the world population will reach nine billion people by 2050 - leads to the urgent need to change the paradigm of fertilization and crop protection to adopt best practices and find sustainable solutions to threats such as climate change.

Some of the solutions to this problem will be the use of new crop protection methods that represent an alternative to products derived from chemical synthesis - BIOCONTROL solutions - natural solutions composed of Vegetable Oils, Oligosaccharides or Botanical Extracts with proven action against insects, fungi and without residues.

Kiplant VS-04 is a solution of enzymatic origin based on chitosan with direct action on diseases caused by fungi and pathogenic bacteria, allowing at the same time the optimization of productivity, with higher crop quality and without residues.

Mode of action:

— Reinforces the plant’s innate response capacity, allowing it to defend itself against various pathogens, such as diseases caused by bacteria or fungi.
— Increases plant growth and development — Direct action against fungi, bacteria and nematodes through interaction between fungal membranes and Chitosan molecules resulting in membrane destruction.

The objective of the trial was to evaluate the elicitor activity of the Kiplant VS-04 product at 3 different concentrations, using a quantitative method based on the expression level of two genes of the SA (salicylic acid) defense pathway. Seedlings were treated with different concentrations and the expression level of the two genes was measured by PCR analysis.

Fig. 1 — The graph illustrates the steps of the elicitation test applied in this trial.

Graf. 1 — Mean level of PR1 gene expression, according to treatments.

PR1 gene expression increases with increasing product concentration. Kiplant VS-04 at 0.3% activated up to 70-fold higher PR1 gene expression compared to water treatment and for Kiplant VS-04 at 3% concentration there was 530-fold higher PR1 gene activation than water treatment.

Graf. 2 — Mean level of PR5 gene expression, according to treatments.

PR5 expression is activated by all concentrations of the product with dose effect. In fact, the activation levels of PR5 expression increase with increasing product concentration.

Kiplant VS-04 at 3% activated up to 18 times more PR5 gene expression compared to water treatment. And application of Kiplant VS-04 product at 0.3% concentration activated almost twice as much as SA application (7,6).

This trial demonstrated that Kiplant VS-04 has the ability to induce the plant’s defense system against pathogen attacks, in particular by activating the salicylic acid pathway, since it clearly activates the expression of PR1 and PR5 genes whatever the dose used.