aniversário – InnovPlantProtect

NEWS

InPP takes another step towards intellectual protection for its biostimulant for agriculture

July 24, 2025
Blog, Highlight, News
Ines Ferreira

InnovPlantProtect (InPP) is pleased to announce the publication of an international patent application (PCT) for a strain of Bacillus velezensis with application as a plant biostimulant. This innovation represents a significant milestone in our research, with a direct impact on sustainable agriculture and crop resilience in the face of climate and environmental challenges.

A natural and effective solution

The biostimulant developed by our team has been carefully studied and tested on different vegetable crops, such as tomatoes and lettuce, and on cereals, such as rice. The results obtained demonstrate the potential of this technology:

Greater development in the early stages of crops, This promotes more vigorous and healthy starts.
Increased productivity, This is evidenced by greater fresh biomass in lettuce and greater fruit production in tomatoes.
Proven molecular responses, with analyses confirming the activation of genes associated with plant responses to different types of abiotic stress.

These results reinforce the effectiveness of the Bacillus velezensis as a natural biostimulation tool, capable of boosting crop performance and contributing to more sustainable agriculture.

From the lab to the field

This patent is another step in InPP's commitment to developing innovative, sustainable biotechnological solutions with industrial applicability. The aim is clear: to support farmers and companies in the sector in meeting the challenges of crop productivity, quality and resilience, in an era when agriculture needs sustainable, high-impact responses.

We are looking for strategic partnerships

We are currently looking for new partnerships with companies and entities in the agricultural sector to take this technology from the laboratory to the field. We believe that collaboration is the key to turning scientific innovation into practical solutions that benefit the entire agricultural value chain.

If you're interested in learning more about this technology or exploring opportunities for collaboration, talk to us. Together we can drive a more productive, resilient and sustainable agriculture.

Innovate together. Protect better.

Image credits: InnovPlantProtect - Inês Ferreira (Photos from left to right: Sandra Caeiro and Rui Figueiras, researchers from the Specific Crop Protection Department and Inês Mexia, researcher from the Formulations and Process Development Department.

“We're here to listen to the sector's problems”: InPP in the spotlight in Voz do Campo magazine

July 23, 2025
Blog, Highlight, News
Ines Ferreira

“We're here to listen to the sector's problems and find solutions together”. This was said by António Saraiva, executive director of InnovPlantProtect (InPP), who attended the eighth edition of the National Olive Oil Congress, held in Campo Maior and featured in the July edition of Voz do Campo magazine.

In the interview, António Saraiva highlighted the importance of olive growing, one of the most representative crops in the Mediterranean, and pointed out some of the major challenges currently facing the sector:

A growing shortage of phytosanitary solutions: many tools are disappearing and effective alternatives are not always emerging.
The long road between research and application in the field: the process of bringing a scientific solution to farmers can take around 10 years.
Impacts of climate change and emerging pests, which make farming even more difficult.

Faced with these challenges, InPP is committed to developing new innovative solutions that are environmentally friendly and sustainable for farmers. CoLAB is looking for agents such as active substances and microorganisms capable of controlling diseases and boosting biostimulants, as well as investing in digital technologies that allow producers to detect crop problems early and increase the effectiveness of interventions.

Another point highlighted by the executive director is the need to speed up the transfer of knowledge to the field, through partnerships and commercial agreements that ensure that innovations actually reach farmers.

“We're here to listen to the sector's problems and find solutions together. We want to be close to farmers, associations and companies, because that's the only way we can develop effective and sustainable tools,” António Saraiva stressed.

The full interview is available in the July issue of Voz do Campo magazine, on newsstands now, and in the image below.

InPP approves another Horizon Europe project

July 21, 2025
Blog, Highlight, News
Ines Ferreira

It's called PROSPER and it's a new European project that aims to transform European agriculture through the valorization of “orphan” legumes - resistant crops, little exploited, but with great potential to face the challenges of climate and food in the future.

The consortium, with total funding of around 5 million euros, brings together 27 partners from 13 European countries and Tunisia, including universities, research centers, companies and non-profit organizations in the agricultural sector. Among them are countries from the Mediterranean (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and France), Central Europe (Germany, Belgium, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania), Northern Europe (Denmark, Sweden and Finland).

The aim of PROSPER is to test and validate new agricultural diversification strategies, adapted to different climates and social and economic contexts, promoting more sustainable, innovative practices that are adjusted to the needs of different agricultural realities.

InPP, PROSPER's partner, will be responsible for analyzing:

Soil health and environmental impact
Energy efficiency and waste management
Nutritional quality of crops
Fair valuation along the production chain

To do this, the InPP team will use advanced technologies, such as real-time sensors and geospatial analysis, which will help study soil health, carbon sequestration captured by crops, water management and biodiversity, among others.

PROSPER is co-created with the main players in the agricultural sector, ensuring that the solutions developed do not remain on paper: they will be practical, useful and transformative.

The project starts in September 2025. We are ready to embark on this journey towards a greener, fairer and more resilient agriculture.

Stay tuned for more news!

EVENTS

InnovPlantProtect brings bio-based and digital crop protection solutions to Braga

March 13, 2024
Blog
Ines Ferreira

InnovPlantProtect (InPP) is participating for the first time in the 56th edition of AGRO - International Agricultural, Livestock and Food Fair, which takes place from March 21st to 24th, no Altice Forum Braga. The professional agricultural fair brings together the main players in the agricultural and agri-food sectors, with the aim of promoting debate and sharing knowledge about the circular economy, natural resource management and innovation in agricultural and food production. InPP will be present with its own stand which aims to be a networking space that will showcase the innovative bio-based and digital solutions available for protecting crops against pests and diseases.

Image credits: Altice Forum Braga

The collaborative laboratory (CoLAB) will welcome visitors at the stand no. F88, among the 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., At the fair, InPP's researchers will be on hand to showcase their activities, the specific bio-based and digital products and services they have to offer the agricultural sector and the market, and the various projects underway. Throughout the four days of the fair, some of InPP's researchers will be at the stand to show visitors the various features of the Elvas CoLAB, which has developed innovation that it hopes will contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems.

Other topics and services in the spotlight will be microbiome analysis, the development of strategies to obtain plants that are more resistant to pests and diseases and risk models, molecular identification and diagnosis services, in vitro plant establishment and maintenance services, plant variety genotyping services, the application of artificial intelligence and drone image analysis to develop early detection tools for various fungi, the monitoring and diagnosis of pests in various crops, as well as the Xyllela fastidiosa bacterium, GIS-based decision support systems, among many others.

For more information on AGRO Braga, go to here.

AGRO, one of the largest fairs in the agricultural sector, the most important in the north of the country, and the only Portuguese fair to be part of Eurasco - European Federation of Agricultural Exhibitions and Show Organizers, is promoted annually. In 2023, the fair, organized by InvestBraga - Agência para a Dinamização Económica and the Municipality of Braga, had more than 200 exhibitors and was visited by more than 45,000 visitors.

InPP received a visit from Ricardo Pinheiro

March 7, 2024
Blog
Ines Ferreira

Ricardo Pinheiro and the other Socialist Party (PS) candidates for the Portalegre constituency in the Portuguese Parliament visited InnovPlantProtect (InPP) in Elvas on Wednesday, March 6, with the aim not only of getting to know the collaborative laboratory's facilities and technological equipment, but also of sharing information and exchanging ideas on how the work of the InsectERA Mobilizing Agenda is progressing.

The delegation was welcomed by InPP's executive director, Pedro Fevereiro, and Daniel Murta, EntoGreen's managing director and chairman of the board.

The visit began with an informal and relaxed conversation between all those involved. Daniel Murta opened the visit by giving a brief presentation of the mobilizing agenda, identifying the objectives, as well as the commitment between the 42 entities involved, with the main aim of creating a new bioindustrial sector in Portugal using insects as a tool for developing new services and products in areas such as animal and human food, the cosmetics industry, or bioplastics and as bioremediation tools, by creating solutions for recovering organic waste.

The Chairman of the Board of EntoGreen, the leader of the agenda, also emphasized the funding of 43 million euros and the importance it will have for the district of Portalegre, the Alentejo region and the country, highlighting the 50 new jobs that have been created in the region as part of the agenda.

EntoGreen's CEO said that the InsetERA agenda “has the ambition to foster the circular economy, leverage the development of innovative insect-based technological solutions for the market and build new factories that will convert olive pomace into fertilizers, proteins and oils through the use of insects”.

It's worth remembering that olive pomace is a polluting by-product and a concern for olive oil producers, which can be transformed into nutritional solutions for plants and animals. Daniel Murta goes on to describe the process: “Best of all, part of this pomace can even be returned to the soil that generated the olives, in the form of organic fertilizers that enrich the soil, closing the cycle of nutrients that would otherwise be wasted.”

EntoGreen's CEO took the opportunity to call for continued joint work with the government to implement the agenda and also warned against “rethinking the extension of the completion date” of the agenda, since the date stipulated when the project application was accepted “could jeopardize the success of the Agenda”.

The executive director of InPP began by emphasizing the team of more than 40 researchers, from various nationalities, who work in the Elvense collaborative laboratory and presented the innovation around plant protection and the challenges facing agriculture to reduce the use of insecticides in national and European agriculture, as required by the European Green Deal. Green Deal, in English).

The delegation proceeded to the greenhouse, which was restored at the end of last year, where they were welcomed by Leonor Martins, a researcher from InPP's Specific Crop Protection department, who explained the work being carried out by the team to assess how these end products, which are derived from insects, produce high-value products, including those for plant and soil protection.

InPP leads the InFrass axis, one of the Agenda's nine axes, which aims to use insects as a tool for creating new, sustainable, high-quality organic fertilizers adapted to the agricultural challenges of the future.

The visit ended with a tour of the CoLAB laboratories, where it was possible to meet Hamza Chammem, a researcher from the Formulations and Process Development department, of Tunisian origin, who moved with his family to Elvas to start working at InPP. Hamza is developing to “proof of concept” or prototype level, formulations to deliver biological protection agents, designed to protect crops against pests and diseases.

Ricardo Pinheiro was enthusiastic about the facilities and the work carried out by the InPP team as part of InsectERA. The candidate considered it “very important” for the PS campaign to visit CoLAB and assured that this is a project with “added value for the local economy”. He also said he was “very pleased” to realize that it is possible, from Alto Alentejo and Elvas in this case, to “design projects on this scale”.

InPP participates in round table on the implementation of technological innovation

March 1, 2024
Blog
Ines Ferreira

The director of InnovPlantProtect's New Biopesticides department, Cristina Azevedo, will take part in the next “MED às 4as” (MED on Wednesdays), on March 6, a round table organized by the MED - Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development, on “From research to application: the path of knowledge from R&D institutions to Industry”.

The round table aims to deepen understanding of the ways in which technological innovation developed in public and private institutions is implemented so that in the future we can optimize the processes associated with applications for protection and maintenance of intellectual and industrial property rights. The idea is to help researchers explore the commercial potential of their ideas and results, make contacts with industry, and expand the impact of research by promoting the transition of their discoveries and inventions from the laboratory and the field to the benefits of real life.

In addition to Cristina Azevedo, the round table will also bring together Vanda Rebelo, head of the Scientific Activities Management Division at the University of Évora, Bruno Medronho, MED researcher at the University of the Algarve, and Susana Filipe, executive director of the CHANGE Associated Laboratory, specialists in the various areas of technology, from research to the production and licensing of patents, to explore the strategy of building an effective link between innovation and utility, which reinvigorates the transfer of knowledge between the university, industry and society. The moderator will be Patrick Materatski, researcher at MED.

The session will take place in person in the Conference Room of the Mitra Pole, at the University of Évora, between 2pm and 3pm, but it is also possible to watch it via Zoom.

Find out more and go to the Zoom link here.

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