Grant Agreement Number: 836435

EU INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIETAL PROBLEMS

The abusive use of pesticides in modern agriculture has extremely toxic side-effects on the environment, the living organisms, the human health and the soil fertility. Among others: Pesticides accumulate in the soil and reduce soil biodiversity and land fertility: only 3-5% of the pesticides reach their targets and the rest 95-97% accumulates in the soil or is carried away to further locations. Pesticides can affect non-target organisms and destroy natural predators. If this occurs, a secondary pest will appear, producing important crop losses and the need for new pesticides. Excessive use of pesticides has resulted in pesticide resistance development in insects, plant pathogens and weeds. In US, an average of 10% crop losses are due to pesticide resistance resulting in $1.4 bn in economic losses every year. Instead of protecting crops sometimes pesticides damage them. This occurs, for instance, when pesticides drift onto nearby crops (by runoff or wind) and damage them, producing important crop losses. Farmers and agricultural workers directly in contact with pesticides are at greatest risk to suffer health conditions, e.g. acute pesticide poisoning affects nearly 1 in every 5,000 agricultural workers.

OUR SOLUTION:

MICROREAL is a first-in-class biostimulant that sustainably boosts agricultural sector productivity while limiting the negative effects of pesticides on agricultural land. It is a unique formulation of 3 natural, non-genetically modified soil microorganisms with fertilization and conditioning capacities.

MICROREAL can:
• Bioremediate 14 pesticides, including organophosphates.
• Inrease crop yield by
   i) enhancing root and canopy development;
   ii) enhancing flowering of the plant;
   iii) boosting shoot growth via triggering nucleic acid and protein synthesis;
   iv) Improving seed and fruit development;
   v) maintaining the pH balance of the soil and increasing chelation rate,
   vi) enhancing development of hairy-roots and increasing the efficiency of fertilizers
• Trigger induced systemic resistance (ISR) and compete with other microorganism for nutrients, thusenhancing the plants immune system and giving a reduced risk of pathogenic attack.
• Restore the health and fertility of agricultural land, making plants more tolerant to the abiotic stressfactors and improving the soil condition and its biodiversity.
• Enhance plant immune system and reduce the risk of pathogenic attack by competing with other microorganism for nutrients.
• Suppress pathogenic fungal growth, by releasing siderephores that sequester iron away from fungi.
• Be applied in situ, not requiring any expenditure other than the product cost;
• Secure a microbe friendly environment for beneficial microorganisms in the rhizosphere.
• Provide a 100% biodegradable, organic and safe solution to users or consumers of treated crops.