End of August Van Iperen International received the official approval for EU Life subsidies for the industrialization, registration, and marketing of the Plants for Plants® project.
Plants for Plants® is a joint project from Landlab – Van Iperen, with scientific partners such as the University of Padua, Italy, the James Hutton Institute in Scotland and sister-companies Euroliquids and Iperen B.V. In addition about 10 subcontractors are involved. Each of them contributing to their own specific know-how.
Landlab is the R&D company. Van Iperen International is a Dutch marketing organization developing and distributing innovative Specialty Fertilizer solutions with biostimulants for fertigation and foliar application operating under the motto “Where Nutrition meets Biostimulation™”.
Plants for Plants® stands for Plants for Plants. It is about the birth of a new generation of biostimulants of plant extracts from food crops, organically grown by farmers. The research project started in early 2012 and it is unique in its approach. Normally chemistry research starts by imaging new molecules and then screening for activity. In the Plants for Plants® project, first, plants are studied on their various plant physiological processes and then studied for compounds that can be of interest for crop nutrition or biostimulation. It is making use of the existing plant physiology. The plant activity itself does the job rather than an industrial chemical. Different crops show different physiological processes and produce different active ingredients. One can say “Since plants have more fantasy”.
In the Plants for Plants® project plant extracts with different targeted characteristics have been identified. The extracts are carefully processed from the harvest of the crop to the formulation of the end products. By this safeguarding a consistent, high-level activity: the so-called “SMP: Standardized Metabolites Phytocomplex”. Plants for Plants® biostimulants are therefore of a homogenous high quality when compared to most of today’s biostimulants.
In the Plants for Plants® life project, 3 prototypes are developed: a fertigation product enhancing the Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE), a foliar product focus on Water Use Efficiency (WUE) and a crop fortification product reducing the sensitivity to diseases. As these biostimulants are produced from organically grown food crops they are free from any chemical residue and very safe for human consumption and the environment. Offering solutions that are more efficient, use fewer resources and are better equipped against adverse climatic conditions.
The EU life grant allows to carry out several important milestone activities such as optimization of the final method of extraction and formulation, construction of a pilot plant, product development in many crops, registrations as biostimulant and organizing scientific and demonstration trials throughout EU.
The Life grant is a nice appreciation by the EU for valuable innovation explorations to more sustainable agriculture.
