ABOUT PHoBOS
PHoBOS: Use of Protein-HydrOlysates as BiOstimulants of vegetable cropS
The project aims to elucidate the biostimulant action of new vegetal derived-protein hydrolysates (PHs) on tomato and lettuce.
Enzymatically produced-vegetal PHs are screened for their biostimulant activity at early stage of crop development under optimal and sub-optimal conditions (low N availability or salinity) using an innovative growth-chamber-based plant phenotyping platform (www.psi.cz).
The adoption of a translational research approach will allow the transfer of results to fertilizer companies, to support the competitive innovation process by developing a new generation of highly efficient biostimulants.
The most active PHs are chemically characterized and fractionated according to their molecular size.
The biostimulant action is evaluated in terms of morpho-physiological traits, microbial population at leaf and root level, as well as molecular and biochemical processes.
The hormone-like activity of PHs and their fractions is evaluated by specific bioassays.
Crop responses to single or multiple stress factors are assessed in long-term agronomic trials under greenhouse conditions.
Omics technologies (metabolomics, transcriptomics and metagenomics) are the key-tools of this project for understanding the mode of action of the most active PHs and their fractions.
