The Growth of Biostimulants and How to Prove Your Products Efficacy

Biostimulants are a rapidly growing new type of product that help improve a plant’s natural processes. They can increase the resilience of crops against biotic and abiotic stress, act as a fertilizer or help improve the strength and quality of crops.

Tested under both protected and open field conditions, biostimulants have demonstrated favorable effects. They are effective at stimulating better crop growth and development, improving nutrient absorption and resistance to abiotic stress (such as cold, heat, drought, or flooding) and at enhancing harvest quality, and have other environmental and economic benefits.

Biostimulants can take microbial or non-microbial forms, such as:

• Plant and algae extracts

• Microorganisms and their derived extracts

• Amino acids and hydrolyzed proteins

• Humic substances or assimilated substances (such as humic acids, fulvic acids, or lignosulfonates)

• Non-nutritive mineral substances

• Biomolecules (such as enzymes, vitamins, or antioxidants)

As with any brand new category of products, regulators are working to establish clear standards regarding the claims made around biostimulants. In Europe, biostimulants are controlled under the fertilizer regulation, and under the EU Fertilizing Products Regulation (2019/1009) producers must demonstrate that their products have a justified plant biostimulant effect to place them on the market.

These standards are set to be expanded upon further by the Committee for European Standardization (CEN), to define how producers can demonstrate that their biostimulant claims are justified.

Biostimulant trials also differ from other trial types because of the need to monitor and quantify the product’s beneficial effects. This might involve investigating the root and shoot biomass, the development of leaf areas and the fruit size. Clearly, the evidence demands are high.

This is where SGS can help. We support the development of new biostimulant products from early screening through product characterization and testing, including performing regulatory field trials.

The SGS Center of Agricultural testing helps you select the best biostimulant candidates thanks to a suite of walk-in growth chambers and an R&D greenhouse facility. All are linked to an on-site laboratory dedicated to microbial investigations.

Elsewhere, our food laboratories are experienced at offering testing on all value related nutrients across plant tissues, including fruits and vegetables or processed food and feed. The final step is to undertake semi-field trials on small scale plots or demonstration field trials on a larger scale, to provide conclusive evidence of your product’s positive impact on plant resilience and yield.

Collecting sufficient data might involve drone flights or satellite imagery (NDVI), or the analysis of plant tissue in a laboratory, including mineral composition and the availability of nutrients in the soil.

SGS field trial operations are well established in Europe, Ukraine, Russia, US, Brazil, Argentina, Kenya, and Indonesia. Our growth chambers, greenhouses and field research capabilities support the effect and performance testing needed for biostimulants. We also support the safety and quality testing needed in our ecotoxicological and product chemistry laboratories. Once efficacy is proved, we also test your product’s compatibility with pesticides or fertilizer products in tank mixes, or as seed treatment solutions.

Why SGS?

SGS Crop Science has a clear focus on new agronomical input R&D testing and development.

With a global network of field stations and laboratories we can provide services tailored for biostimulant product testing, helping evaluate your product under all the relevant cropping conditions, along with dossier preparation.

Together with our food laboratory capabilities and microbial laboratories, we offer comprehensive analytical capabilities in support of your development programs. We also perform taint tests and food processing studies, supporting your label claims on post-harvest storage or any other value-added parameters in your crops and plants.

For further information, please contact:

Dr. Andreas Zumdick

SGS Global Business Manager – Crop Science

t: +49 (0) 6128 744 730

About SGS

We are SGS – the world’s leading testing, inspection and certification company. We are recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. Our 96,000 employees operate a network of 2,700 offices and laboratories, working together to enable a better, safer and more interconnected world.