Sino-Agri: The future trend of biostimulant market is in three aspects: integration with plant protection, soil improvement, and stimulating crop potential

According to different sources, biostimulants can be divided into humic acid, amino acids, small molecular peptides, oligopolysaccharides, Trehalose, chitosan, molasses fermentation, soil beneficial microorganisms and their metabolites, alkaloids (betaine), etc. The application of biostimulants to crops can improve the efficiency of crop utilization of nutrients, enhance the resistance of crops to biological and abiotic stresses, and play a synergistic role in combination with pesticides and fertilizers. Biostimulants can also reduce plant toxicity caused by chemical pesticides and improve crop yield and quality. Thanks to its important effect in crop production, China's biostimulant market continues to expand, with the standardization of agricultural development, biostimulant application potential is huge.

In recent years, a large number of enterprises have developed biostimulant business. Sino-Agri began to layout and screen biostimulant products in 2019, and officially began to market sales promotion of biostimulant products in 2021. Since the listing of the first product, Sino-Agri’s biostimulant products have enjoyed exponential sales growth for three consecutive years with excellent market performance. What experience does Sino-Agri have in product promotion? What is your opinion on the demand and development trend of the domestic biostimulant market? In this interview, Zhang Lu, crop manager of the Crop Health Marketing Department of Sino-Agri, shared the following for us:

Is the demand for biostimulants different in different parts of China?

There's a big difference. Different seasons, different crop planting patterns, the demand for biostimulants will be different. For example, in winter, open-air vegetable crops in the southern region are mainly based on the demand for anti-low temperature and other stress resistance, and the demand for amino acid products is mainly. However, in the northern protected areas, vegetables, in addition to the demand for anti-freezing and anti-low temperature, also face the impact of low temperature oligolighting, but also need to solve the problem of slow growth, so in addition to amino acids, biological stimulants, seaweed extraction products are also a lot of demand. In addition, in different regions and under different planting modes, soil pH value, organic matter content and soil flora population are also different. Therefore, it is necessary to use different types of organic water-soluble fertilizers and select different types of microbial inoculants and other biostimulants according to the actual needs of the local area to meet the most basic planting needs of local growers.

     What problems does your company's biostimulants solve locally?

Sino-Agri’s biostimulant is mainly combined with the company's differentiated plant protection products to promote the health management of crops during the whole growth period, and solve the pain points of many farmers. 

In Hainan, cowpea seedling thrips harm after the head is not long, affecting the climbing frame and other problems are very common. The high content of amino acid products of Sino-Agri in the control of cowpea thrips at the same time, through the supplement of nutrition supply and growth regulation, to promote cowpea dragon head rapid return to normal growth, but also a good promotion of cowpea flowering, improve the quality of flowering, by cowpea farmers welcome.

Around the plant protection products + biological stimulating hormone, we have in strawberry, grape, melon, jacket vegetables, leaf vegetables, wheat, rice and other more than 20 kinds of crops, related application technology development, has launched many product solutions. It has formed a certain brand influence in the direction of fruit and vegetable flowering and fruit setting quality, field increase and crop adversity management.

Is there any difference between the promotion of biostimulants and chemical formulation?

The promotion of biostimulants is somewhat similar to the promotion of protective fungicides.

First, it is necessary to intervene in advance, and use it from the early stage of crop growth, and the continuous use effect is better. For example, under adverse conditions, the use of amino acids and other biological stimulants in advance has a good resistance to such adverse conditions as cold, heat, drought and flood, but when adversity occurs, the use of biological stimulants to remedy it needs to increase the amount and frequency of use, which is similar to protective fungicides.

Secondly, it needs to be used continuously and regularly according to a certain interval. The regulation of biostimulants for crop growth is a long-term process, may be used once or twice, the naked eye may not be able to see much difference, more is the regulation of the overall physiological and biochemical functions of crops. After continuous use for many times, the overall growth, flowering and fruit setting ability, disease resistance have been greatly improved.

Third, Product promotion requires patience. These products are not as intuitive to farmers as pesticides in the short term, so farmers are often relatively poor in acceptance.Once the effect is not obvious, they give up the use, just like many farmers do not see the disease and do not use pesticide, the use of protective fungicides is distrustable, and it is necessary to insist on continuous promotion, so that some farmers establish cognition through use and gradually realize the value of the product.

What trends do you see in this market over the next 10 years?

First, it is the deep integration of plant protection and biostimulants. Biostimulant + plant protection solution, while killing insects and preventing diseases, improve the nutrient supply of plants, improve the overall resistance of crops, and also play a certain role in promoting the efficacy of pesticides. The use of biostimulants + plant protection organic combination of crop health management throughout the growth period will become the core development direction of agricultural crop solutions in the future.

Second, for soil improvement of biological stimulants, in the direction of acid regulation, alkali regulation, salt hydrolysis, there will be great application and development. Soil health issues are getting more and more attention from the industry, as evidenced by the increasing use of organic matter each year. Especially in the continuous cropping area of protected land, soil problems are becoming more and more prominent, so there will be a great demand for biostimulants combined with crop root pest control and root physiological disease control.

Third, in the direction of crop yield increase, biostimulants will play an increasingly important role in the direction of stimulating crop potential factors. With the emergence of professional growers and the popularization of field management techniques, farmers are relatively mature in the use of pesticides and conventional fertilizers. However, for the coordinated management of production factors such as temperature, light and environmental changes, which determine the potential yield of crops, biostimulant + will become an important development direction for crop yield increase in the future.