Taking a Deep Dive into the Functional Value of Biostimulants by Focusing on Planting Needs

China is one of the largest agricultural countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and its new farming requirements, such as initiatives for achieving ″green prevention and control″ and ″sustainable agriculture,″ as well as ″decreasing the quantity of used chemical fertilizers and increasing efficiency,″ have paved the way for biostimulants to showcase their functions and values in agricultural production. With the trends of climate change and centralized farming practices, traditional fertilizer products are unable to meet the needs of growers. Therefore, everyone’s attention has focused on products that can cope with abiotic stress and offer higher performance and yields. In recent years, traditional chemical pesticide manufacturers have gradually explored and entered the Chinese biostimulant market, backed up by their existing brand image and distribution advantages. 

However, the Chinese market is facing the same problems as the global biostimulant market, such as having too many ideas, false innovations and inconsistent product quality, but the main obstacle is the ″unreal demand″ for biostimulant products. 

For many years, biostimulants were regarded as good but unnecessary inputs, so when the prices of agricultural products are low or the market is struggling, the first action of grower’s is to stop using biostimulants to control costs. To solve this type of problem, the following proposals have been made: 

Offer policy support that will significantly drive the market. 

In 2021, the global biostimulant market was valued at $3.5 billion, of which the European market accounted for nearly a quarter. European countries began applying biostimulant as a ″necessity″ more than half a century ago, and still lead in the area of application while many Spanish and Italian companies are among the world’s major biostimulant manufacturers. The ″farm to table″ initiative launched by the European Union (EU) aims to reduce fertilizer use by at least 20% by 2030. 

In China, policies related to ″(chemical) fertilizer decrease and efficiency increase″ and ″sustainable agriculture″ have shown similar effects. The ″2020 No.1 Central Government Document″ clearly states that agriculture should be based on green development to ensure the ″ongoing decrease in used quantity of chemical fertilizers and pesticides″ while efforts are being made to draft green prevention and control programs and build organic farming demonstration bases. All these measures signify the start of the formal transformation and upgrading of Chinese agricultural development. 

In recent years, the growing use of biostimulants in the Asia Pacific and Latin America began to surpass other regions around the world, with a respective increase of 12.5% and 12.7% in 2021, due mainly to late applications and growth limitations in these regions. 

The growth in these regions is expected to continue in the future. CityMax is prepared to further develop and promote biostimulants in these regions to respond to the calls and policy support of local governments, by producing products fit for major crops and local application practices, in order to solve local agricultural problems.

Developing biostimulant robustly at the current industry turning point. 

The global food and agricultural production system is facing unprecedented challenges, such as increased food demand caused by population growth, the adverse impact of climate change, the overexploitation of natural resources, the loss of biological diversity, the loss of grain and waste of food, complex international crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the dollarrelated monetary over-issue, and wars, which the entire world has faced over the last two years. All these factors will lead to increased demand for sustainable food production. Currently, biostimulants can play a key role in solving some of these issues in a sustainable way, because of their capacities to improve soil quality, increase nutrient uptake, and enhance resistance to abiotic stresses. 

Moreover, the sharp rise in international natural gas prices resulting from global energy transformation and other factors has directly led to continuous rises in the prices of fertilizers and raw materials. Therefore, it is easier to see the role of small-scale but efficient biostimulant products in reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers. The combination of the ″reduction of the use of fertilizers and pesticides + biostimulants″ will be a good option for pesticide application. 

Focusing on crop needs to take a deep dive into the functional value of biostimulants.

Currently, chemical fertilizer prices are soaring, creating an excellent opportunity for promoting and popularizing biostimulants. Therefore, efforts should be made to attract farmers around the world by demonstrating and promoting biostimulant products, as well as highlighting their many functions, such as nitrogen fixation, phosphorus increase and potassium regulation, which can help farmers improve their nutrient utilization. 

This is also a reason why CityMax established its biostimulant R&D center, as well as a technical service team covering various regions of the world to facilitate trials and promote biostimulants tailored to different environments and crops, in order to verify their outstanding performance and effects. While promoting biostimulants, CityMax not only provides customers with products but it also helps to solve serious planting problems via precision solutions. Our technical team provides precise solutions to the specific problems of each individual customer, through our available accumulated data and modeling gained over the long-term, to fully utilize the functional effects of biostimulants. Through our promotions and services, we encourage users from around the world to gradually accept our design concept and product system for healthy crop cultivation. This is our contribution to promoting sustainable farming. 

″Over our many years of experiences in overseas markets, we recently noticed that in many regions of the world, such as in Asia-Pacific, Central America and South America and Africa, a continuous cropping regime is still common in the production of vegetables, melons and fruits. In most cases, roots are poorly developed at the early growth stage while new roots cannot emerge, so old roots become rotten and turn to yellow and black,″ said Tu Xiaoman (Marketing director of CityMax). 

 ″Weak growth in the early vegetative growth period leads to insufficient nutrition in the later reproductive growth stage, leading not only to a low number of flowers and fruits, but also lower quality fruits. Therefore, caring for the root system at the early stage is a top priority,″ he added. 

Currently, humic acid is widely known to improve soil conditions and the rhizosphere growth environment of crops. However, relying on humic acid alone cannot improve the effects of continuous cropping. For this reason, the research, development and application of multi-source biostimulants have become important, so we released our product, Organmix, to the market. With regards to the raw materials of this product, CityMax chose the following main materials, which are recognized in the international market: 

●  Leonardite from high-quality production areas. 

●  Polypeptides extracted from plants. 

●  Ascophyllum Nodosum from high-quality seas. 

To facilitate use for farmers, we chose the internationally-advanced hollow microparticle technique, which solves the problem of slow dissolution and enables instant dissolution. The effective functional group with three types of materials are directionally extracted and are ultimately organically combined, through using the unique MRT molecular recombination technology. Therefore, the effective substances of a product under pH neutral state can reach a stable state. Attributable to its organic components from various sources, Organmix is simple and easy absorbed, can provide important nutrients required by the growth and reproduction of microorganism, and can also replenish amino acids required for the growth of crops, as well as stimulate the rapid growth of crops to improve quality and yield. The product truly meets crop needs and reduces input cost in favor of farmers, while being easy and convenient to use.

We always believe that product development should be linked to the issues encountered by growers during production, as well as with relevant planting requirements, especially the real and practical needs of growers. 

We must first understand why growers use biostimulants, as well as on what occasions will growers use biostimulants? We believe that from planting to harvesting, biostimulants would best exert its outstanding functions on the following occasions: 

● Seed treatment to facilitate germination. 

● Seedling facilitation to promote root growth. 

● Anti-stress capability to increase stress resistance. 

● Flowering and fruiting enhancement to increase the size of fruits. 

● Appearance improvement, to improve the appearance, taste and marketability of fruits to the benefit of higher income. 

Going forward, CityMax’s research and development will focus on the following two functions: 

● Multi-target extensive functionalization. To focus on one single need but add more functions, enabling growers to spend less but experience more effects. 

 ● Single-target intensive functionalization. To focus on one single need but to provide a better outcome, which is either lower cost, faster effect or longer lasting effect, offering growers a new experience. Therefore, the ″organic + inorganic program″ will become a trend of biostimulant development, and the ″organic function + inorganic nutrition″ combination will be a new-high for future biostimulant development and application. 

Biostimulant products will play key roles in future agricultural production. They also have distinctive features, including stress, disease, pest and weed resistance, which are all considered biological stress, as well as tolerance to meteorological disasters or abiotic stress. These products can affect plant metabolism to stimulate the natural process of plant growth, as well as promote the growth of crops and improve the yield and quality of agricultural products by improving fertilizer utilization. 

CityMax aims to enable humanity and crops share the organic nutrition offered by science and technology.