Plant-DiTech Ltd applications

The concentration of fertilizers, biostimulants, microorganisms, drugs and plant protection products affect the plant development, growth, and yields. Determining the optimal concentration of different treatments together with the watering regime (i.e. drought conditions) is a great challenge from both an agronomic and environmental aspect. For example, the efficient application of fertilizers optimize plant performance, however, over-fertilization will contaminate the soil and adjacent water bodies (groundwater, lakes, etc.).

Researchers and breeders are returning to nature, searching for explanations about plant adaptation and adaptation abilities to harsh environments. Finding a genotype that presents a trait to cope with drought or salinity could improve crop production and stability.

Recent progress and cost reductions in sequencing methods suggest that the avoidance of future breeding bottlenecks will require the ability to phenotype large populations in a reliable and effective way. Reliable assessment of quantitative physiological traits (QPTs) such as growth rate, water use efficiency or transpiration are important aspects in many research and development programs. Nevertheless, measuring these QPTs has always been a major challenge due to the complex nature of the phenotype, the number of genes involved, the high genotype by environment interaction (GxE), the cost of phenotyping large numbers of individuals, and the typical heterogeneity in production environments which requires that precise screening will take place in a controlled environment.