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In order to develop properly, plants need air, water, light, carbon, oxygen, mineral nutrients and natural bio stimulants …

Plant nutritive mechanisms

To ensure their growth, just like all living beings, plants need carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace elements.
Roots take up water and nutrients (N, P, K…) from soil, making up a blend called raw sap that flows up to the leaves thanks to a mechanism of evaporation and transpiration. The main function of a leaf is to feed the plant by photosynthesis which is a unique process to all the living kind, through which light energy is converted into sugars (biologic energy). The carbon dioxide absorbed by the leaves is combined to water (H2O) taken up by roots to form sugars (CnHnOn). Oxygen (O2) is liberated into the atmosphere at this stage. The simple elements, sugars, are then led up to the growth zones of plants by the elaborated sap. During complex biochemical mechanisms they are then combined with nutrients. For instance, phosphorus (P) will be a key element in the formation of cell membranes; nitrogen (N) will make protein formation possible. Plants can thus create over 3000 molecule types from the simplest to the most complex which enable them to secure all the necessary functions to their development: growth, communication, reproduction, protection…

Importance of bio stimulants in plant production

Biostimulants or phytostimulants are more or less complex organic or mineral substances that may directly come from the evolution of soil and existing organic matter (pre-humus molecules, root exudation…) and from micro organisms living in symbiosis with the plant (myccorhizae), or again, from molecules synthesized by the plants themselves so that they may enhance their own nutritional support and resistance, and even protect them against some bio-pathogenic aggressors. Research has often been inspired by natural patterns, drawing from them new molecules. Present day biotechnologies make it possible to synthesize these active matters bio mimetically.
Farm crops are influenced by endogenous factors (varietal factors) and exogenous factors (pedo-climatological factors, diseases …) that may strongly restrict crop quality and crop yields, imposing preventive and corrective treatments. These treatments can work either directly on plant dysfunctions (nutrient addition, chemical treatments), or indirectly by stimulating physiological mechanisms and crop resistance.
These stimulators interfere upon the optimization of phenological stages and the stimulation of natural defence mechanisms of plants in stressful situations.
Among the mechanisms available, there is a range of more natural alternative treatments aimed at improving the protection and development of crops, like root system stimulators (the OSIRYL effect), at strengthening the resistance to plant oxidations (ANTYS foliar bio stimulant effect) and at producing natural defence molecules (NDS).

An interview with Gilbert Garapin