Novel Sources of Plant Biostimulants for Sustainable Agriculture
A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Chemical and Molecular Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 May 2026 | Viewed by 23273
Special Issue Editor
Interests: metabolomics; phytochemistry; natural products; secondary metabolites; agri-food byproducts; chromatography; mass spectrometry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The term biostimulants refers to substances and/or microorganisms whose function, when applied directly to plants or spread in the soil, is to stimulate natural processes to benefit nutrient uptake, nutrient efficiency, tolerance to abiotic stress, and/or crop quality. Plant biostimulants can be produced from the transformation of agri-food wastes such as spent coffee grounds, vegetable compost, and isolated proteins (e.g., from soybeans residues), and are widely used in agriculture and horticulture due to their efficacy in improving the yield and quality of crops. Plant and seaweed extracts are also increasingly used as biostimulants for the same reasons. More recently, the soil inoculation of some plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), such as Trichoderma, has been demonstrated to exert similar effects on crops by altering the composition of the rhizosphere and consequently the absorption and metabolism of nutrients.
Despite the widespread use of chemical and microbial biostimulants for plant cultivation and their proven efficacy, their mechanisms of action at the molecular and biochemical levels remain unclear. Considering the importance that such products are gaining in the context of sustainable agriculture and their increasing use, and to better asses their safety and optimize their applications, efforts to understand how they work are of utmost importance. Also, research published in recent years has demonstrated that there are several materials that can be used as a source of biostimulants, and many of these are derived from the transformation of agri-food wastes and industrial byproducts. However, despite the efficacy of these innovative products, there is still a gap in the knowledge regarding their molecular mechanisms of action.
Hence, this Special Issue is dedicated to the identification of potential novel sources of plant biostimulants and to the assessment of their mechanisms of action on plants, especially at the molecular level. Original research articles covering these topics are welcome, as well as review papers summarizing the latest research findings.
Dr. Gregorio Peron
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- plant biostimulants
- mechanisms of action
- agri-food byproducts
- sustainable agriculture
- plant cultivation
- horticulture
- plant biochemistry
- metabolomics
- plant performance
- abiotic stress
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