Grant: CCI Applied Research and Development Grants

Post-COVID, fertilizers and related products increased in price, steadily impacting food supplies worldwide. A shortage in the main types of fertilizers: nitrogen, potash, and phosphate as a result of the decrease in production and the war between Russian and the Ukraine has led to this sharp increase. Given that demand for fertilizers has grown from 20 million tons in 1950 to 190 million tons in 2019 and 2020, the shortage has the potential to substantially impact food supply overall as fertilizers are vital to sustaining the current yields of crops worldwide. This shortage has led to mass market interest in biostimulants as a means of augmenting the short supply of fertilizers available. Biostimulants can be defined as a substance or microorganism that, when applied to seeds, plants, or on the rhizosphere, stimulates natural processes to enhance or benefit nutrient uptake, nutrient use efficiency, tolerance to abiotic stress, or crop quality and yield. Biostimulants are often made of raw materials that in combination usually contribute to the growth of plants or conditions through an application of a substance or a mixture of substances. However, not much is known on the effect that biostimulants have at the root, stem, and leaf level of crops, and what growth genes are activated because of their use. This project seeks to understand and explore how one plant-based biostimulant can potentially impact changes at the gene transcription level in three tissue sources: root, stem, and leaf, to enhance further our overall understanding of the impacts that biostimulants may have at the genetic level. This will allow our partner to further the added value of their product for mass marketing and commercialization purposes and will enable us to answer the research question of what genetic changes are prompted at these levels with the use of a biostimulant. The project partner will provide the College with the amount of the biostimulant and corn seed to be planted within the College’s grow pods. This collection of corn samples, 10 samples of each of roots, leaves, and stems from independent, identically cultivated plants, for both treated and untreated corn will be collected post a growth period of 8 weeks. The research team will perform a total transcriptomic sequencing of the tissue extracted RNA, which will allow for final analysis showing whether growth genes are activated with the use of biostimulants in corn, potentially addressing a gap in research.