New project granted: “Smart BioStimulants for Sustainable Plant Protection -smartBioS”

Today, we were formally informed that our project “smartBioS - Smart BioStimulants for sustainable plant protection” has been granted in the framework of the Bioeconomy Internationl program of BMBF to develop chitosan-based plant biostimulants for a sustainable agriculture. We will collaborate with Dr. Andreas Kortekamp from the State Education and Research Center of Viticulture, Horticulture and Rural Development in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, and with Prof Jatinder Kumar from G. B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology in Pantnagar in Northern India, close to the foothills of the Himalayas. We have collaborated before with Prof Kumar in the exceedingly successful Indo-German 2+2 project CuChi-BCA in which we developed triple synergistic combinations of chitosan biostimulants, plant disease protecting copper fungicides, and plant strengthening, copper- and chitosan-tolerant Trichoderma strains with bio-control activity. It had taken us - with the support of BMBF – ab out three years to convince the Department of Biotechnology DBT in Delhi to start the first Indo-German 2+2 project (meaning one academic and one industrial partner in both countries). When Dr. Shailja from DBT realized the potential of our results, she immediately suggested and granted a “phase 2” for the project to translate our results into successful products. However, it took another three years to secure support from the German side, again with the help of BMBF. Now finally, we can continue!