The executive director of InnovPlantProtect (InPP), António Saraiva, took part in the conference “What are the challenges facing the national agroforestry sector over the next decade?”, which took place at the Escola Superior Agrária de Coimbra (ESAC) of the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra last Tuesday, April 22.
The event, which brought together more than 150 participants and was organized by 17 national Competence Centres, discussed topics such as innovation, sustainability, soil conservation, monitoring cork oak forests and efficient agricultural management.
António Saraiva was part of the panel of commentators, whose speaker was Pedro Santos, Director General of CONSULAI, and moderated by Maria Custódia Correia, Coordinator of the AKIS Portugal Network. The opening session was attended by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, José Manuel Fernandes, who announced the publication of the Ordinance of April 21 to open the Grant for Initiatives for the creation of Operational Groups (OG).
This initiative provides a total of 11 million euros for new GOs, with a maximum of 350,000 euros per project and eligible funding of 100%.
The GOs are considered crucial structures for transferring knowledge and strengthening the AKIS (Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System).
Special thanks to the 17 Competence Centers for the opportunity to participate in this productive meeting!
Beyond strategy: The secret ingredient of innovation
On the path to success, organizations define strategies, plan each step, and invest in crucial resources such as the sale of services and products, project applications, the development of solid business plans, and the protection of intellectual property. However, there is an often-neglected element that is fundamental to the flourishing of innovation: serendipity. But what exactly is this mysterious force, and why is it so vital to advancing agriculture and so many other areas?
When chance opens doors: The power of unplanned discovery
Serendipity lies in the art of finding something valuable when looking for something else. It's the unintentional discoveries that arise from unexpected situations. Throughout history, some of the most transformative innovations have not been the result of a rigorous plan, but rather of a fortuitous encounter with the unknown. Although deliberate research and methodical experimentation are pillars of scientific and technological progress, openness to the unexpected proves to be a powerful catalyst. When researchers cultivate this openness, they often come across revelations that have the potential to revolutionize entire industries, transform technologies, and expand our understanding of the world around us.
A close look at the “error”: The genesis of an innovative biofungicide
Today, we unveil the surprising and inspiring story of Maria Miguel, a talented researcher from the InPP's New Biopesticides Department, whose insight transformed a fortuitous event into a discovery of inestimable value: a broad-spectrum biofungicide capable of combating Botrytis cinerea, the relentless fungus responsible for the devastating gray mold disease in tomato plants. This pathology represents one of the greatest phytosanitary challenges in tomato cultivation, especially when grown in greenhouses, causing significant losses to producers if not controlled in a timely manner.
From discard to discovery: An investigator's insight
The journey of this discovery began in a scenario familiar to any researcher: the observation of Petri dishes, used to grow cell or microorganism cultures. In Maria Miguel's Petri dishes, colonies of the fungus Botrytis cinerea were growing, intentionally introduced there for study. However, something else caught her attention: one of the plates was contaminated by mold, and curiously, a clear zone surrounded this intruder. Instead of discarding the plate and ignoring it as mere contamination, Maria Miguel decided to investigate the reason behind that clear area. Her curiosity revealed that the mold had a surprising ability to inhibit the growth of Botrytis cinerea in its vicinity.
“Sometimes we look at something and think it's a mistake. The truth is that within a failure, there can be something good,” shares the researcher. The emotion and enthusiasm of a researcher when realizing that what at first seemed like an obstacle, a negative result, can actually be an opportunity, is contagious. For Maria Miguel, this “error” transformed into a serendipitous discovery with enormous potential.
Maria Miguel, a researcher at the InPP's Department of New Biopesticides, transformed an unexpected event into a groundbreaking discovery: a broad-spectrum biofungicide to combat gray mold in tomato plants.
Beyond chance: The active ingredients of scientific discovery
As the story of this biofungicide demonstrates, the world of science is full of examples of discoveries that arose from the unexpected. One of the most famous cases is the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928. While observing Petri dishes, Fleming noticed that a mold was producing a substance that eliminated Staphylococcus aureus bacteria around it. He identified the mold as Penicillium notatum and named his revolutionary antibiotic penicillin. Penicillin ended up becoming an extremely important drug for fighting infections.
However, chance is not the only protagonist of these important revelations. “Sometimes we have to follow our intuition and be able to prove that we are right or wrong,” explains Maria Miguel. In addition to intuition, a generous dose of curiosity, an open mind to accept unexpected results, a solid scientific knowledge, and the ability to see and advance to further investigations on surprising results play a crucial role in the alchemy of discovery.
The ecosystem of discovery: Fostering an environment conducive to innovation
There are other ingredients that contribute to the recipe for scientific success:
Creativity: The ability to generate new perspectives, concepts, questions, or solutions, and the willingness to explore existing ideas under a new light.
Flexibility: The courage to venture into unknown territories without fear of failure, thus increasing the odds of serendipitous encounters.
But no discovery flourishes in isolation. At InPP, the strong team spirit and culture of collaboration transcend departmental boundaries. Maria Miguel's discovery is a testament to this synergy, as she herself acknowledges: “My colleagues opened doors so that I could do my research.”
To foster innovation, organizations need to cultivate an environment that stimulates open discussions and connects people from diverse areas of knowledge and life experiences, without judgment; that encourages curiosity and receptiveness to new experiences; and that promotes a relentless pursuit of improving scientific knowledge, the fertile ground where serendipity can germinate.
Sowing the future: The impact of a discovery and the path of research
Although Maria Miguel is about to embark on a new journey, driven by a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral fellowship - a program that supports the career of researchers and promotes excellence and innovation in research - her legacy at InPP is already flourishing. Her innovative discovery is opening new and promising doors for future research in the area of crop protection, demonstrating how, at times, it is in the unexpected that the potential to transform our world lies.
Beyond strategy: The secret ingredient of innovation
On the road to success, organizations define strategies, plan every step and invest in crucial resources such as selling services and products, applying for projects, drawing up solid business plans and protecting intellectual property. However, there is an element that is often overlooked, but which is fundamental to the flourishing of innovation: serendipity. But what exactly is this mysterious force and why is it so vital to the advancement of agriculture and so many other areas?
When chance opens doors: The power of unplanned discovery
Serendipity is the art of finding something valuable when you're looking for something else. It's the unintentional discoveries that arise from unexpected situations. Throughout history, some of the most transformative innovations have not been the result of a rigorous plan, but rather a chance encounter with the unknown. While deliberate research and methodical experimentation are pillars of scientific and technological progress, openness to the unexpected proves to be a powerful catalyst. When researchers cultivate this openness, they often stumble upon revelations that have the potential to revolutionize entire industries, transform technologies and expand our understanding of the world around us.
A close look at “error”: The genesis of an innovative biofungicide
Today, we unveil the surprising and inspiring story of Maria Miguel, a talented researcher from InPP's New Biopesticides Department, whose acumen turned a chance event into a priceless discovery: a broad-spectrum biofungicide capable of combating the Botrytis cinerea, the relentless fungus responsible for the devastating gray rot disease in tomato plants. This pathology represents one of the biggest phytosanitary challenges in tomato cultivation, especially when grown in greenhouses, causing significant losses to producers if it is not controlled in good time.
From discard to discovery: The insight of a researcher
The journey of this discovery began in a setting familiar to any researcher: the observation of Petri dishes, used to grow cultures of cells or microorganisms. On Maria Miguel's plates, colonies of the fungus Botrytis cinerea were growing, intentionally introduced there for study. However, something else caught her eye: one of the plates was contaminated by mold, and curiously, a clear area surrounded this intruder. Instead of discarding the plate and dismissing it as mere contamination, Maria Miguel decided to investigate the reason behind the clear area. Her curiosity revealed that the mold had a surprising ability to prevent the growth of Botrytis cinerea in its vicinity.
“Sometimes we look at something and think it's a mistake. The truth is that in a failure there can be something good,” the researcher shares. The excitement and enthusiasm of a researcher realizing that what at first glance seemed like an obstacle, a negative result, could actually be an opportunity, is contagious. For Maria Miguel, this “mistake” turned into a serendipitous discovery with enormous potential.
Maria Miguel, a researcher at InPP's New Biopesticides Department, who turned an unexpected event into a discovery that changed the course of her work: a broad-spectrum biofungicide to combat gray rot in tomato plants.
Beyond chance: The active ingredients of scientific discovery
As the history of this biofungicide shows, the world of science is full of examples of discoveries that came out of the blue. One of the most famous cases is Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928. While observing Petri dishes, Fleming noticed that a mold was producing a substance that eliminated bacteria Staphylococcus aureus around him. He identified the mold as Penicillium notatum and named his revolutionary antibiotic penicillin. Penicillin ended up becoming an extremely important medicine for fighting infections.
However, chance is not the only protagonist of these important revelations. “Sometimes we have to follow our intuition and be able to prove ourselves right or wrong,” explains Maria Miguel. In addition to intuition, a generous dose of curiosity, an open mind to accept unexpected results, solid scientific knowledge and the ability to see and move on to further research into surprising results play a crucial role in the alchemy of discovery.
The discovery ecosystem: Fostering an environment conducive to innovation
There are other ingredients that contribute to the recipe for scientific success:
Creativity: The ability to generate new perspectives, concepts, questions or solutions, and the willingness to explore existing ideas in a new light.
Flexibility: The courage to venture into unknown territory without the fear of failure, thus increasing the chances of serendipitous encounters.
But no discovery flourishes in isolation. At InPP, the strong team spirit and culture of collaboration transcend departmental boundaries. The case of Maria Miguel's discovery is testimony to this synergy, as she herself acknowledges: “My colleagues opened doors so that I could do my research”.
To foster innovation, organizations need to cultivate an environment that encourages open discussions and connects people from different areas of knowledge and life experiences, without judgment; that encourages curiosity and receptiveness to new experiences; and that promotes an incessant quest to improve scientific knowledge, the fertile ground where serendipity can germinate.
Sowing the future: The impact of a discovery and the path of research
Although Maria Miguel is about to embark on a new journey, boosted by a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD scholarship - a program that supports the careers of researchers and promotes excellence and innovation in research - her legacy at InPP is already flourishing. Her groundbreaking discovery is opening promising new doors for future research in the field of crop protection, demonstrating how sometimes it is in the unexpected that the potential to transform our world lies.
“By developing biobased biopesticides from by-products of the [cannabis production] industry that is booming at a national level, particularly in the Alentejo, the ValorCannBio project will contribute to the goals set by the European Commission in the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategy of reducing the use of chemically synthesized pesticides by 50% by 2030,” Cristina Azevedo, director of the New Biopesticides Department at InnovPlantProtect (InPP), told Público newspaper.
ValorCannBio is one of the winning projects in the 6th edition of the la Caixa Foundation's Promove Program and aims to transform waste from the production of medicinal cannabis into biological, sustainable pesticides capable of controlling the main olive tree diseases.
The initiative also has the partnership of the Associated Laboratory for Green Chemistry (LAQV) of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon NOVA FCT and the companies GreenBePharma and AGR by De Prado.
Find out more in the article featured in Público, available at here.
On National Sustainability Day, the project “ValorCannBio - Valorization of medicinal cannabis by-products as a biopesticide for olive groves” was announced, led by InnovPlantProtect (InPP) in partnership with the Associated Laboratory for Green Chemistry (LAQV) of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon | NOVA FCT and the companies GreenBePharma (GBP) - production of medicinal cannabis and AGR Global - cultivation and production of olive groves (De Prado Group), one of the winners of the 6th edition of the ”la Caixa” Foundation's Promove Program, in collaboration with BPI and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), in the category of innovative pilot projects. The project will make it possible to exploit the by-products of medicinal cannabis production as sustainable and effective biopesticides to control the main diseases of the olive grove.
InPP is marking National Sustainability Day with the public presentation of the ValorCannBio project, which seeks to contribute to sustainability by developing sustainable biopesticides to control two of the most important diseases of the olive grove, a crop of extreme economic and social importance in the Alentejo: Gafa and Tuberculosis. Gafa is considered a priority because it causes production losses of up to 100 percent, corresponding to more than 50 million euros, a reduction in olive oil quality and is leading to the disappearance of the genetic heritage of traditional olive varieties such as the Galician, which is highly susceptible to the disease. Tuberculosis is an olive disease that spreads to almost all olive groves and reduces the quality of the oil.
In order to help control the two diseases that affect olive groves, the team of researchers involved in the project will develop a biopesticide from the leaves of the cannabis plant, which are considered surplus from the medical cannabis production process in Portugal and legally have to be destroyed. This process will make it possible to meet the needs of olive growers, but also to open up a new value chain associated with the use of a by-product of the plant's production industry for medicinal purposes.
“The existing solutions on the market to combat Gafa and Tuberculosis are ineffective and fall into groups of chemically synthesized pesticides, which have negative impacts on the environment and are being discontinued, so it is urgent to find alternatives. On the other hand, cannabis companies could sell the surplus biomass to a future biopesticide industry, avoiding the high costs of destruction and investing in a circular economy. This project aims to integrate the concepts of sustainable agriculture, combined with green chemistry, to obtain more environmentally friendly products,” explains Ana Rita Duarte, a researcher at the LAQV of the Faculty of Science and Technology of Universidade Nova de Lisboa |NOVA FCT.
For Cristina Azevedo, director of the New Biopesticides department at the collaborative laboratory InPP, based in Elvas, “by developing biobased biopesticides from by-products of an industry that is booming at national level, particularly in the Alentejo, ValorCannBio will contribute to the goals set by the European Commission in the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategy, of reducing the use of chemically synthesized pesticides by 50 percent by 2050.”.
The director of the InPP department also assures us that “all the impacts of ValorCannBio will initially be felt in the municipality of Elvas, where the project will take place. However, it is expected that these will extend to the entire olive-growing region, from Trás-os-Montes to the Algarve, where production losses due to Gafa and Tuberculosis are on the increase.”.
The project presented today has been awarded to a team that has already won several national and international awards.
The Promove program wants entities to use their non-repayable grants to move from theory to practice: to understand the viability of scientific concepts under development, as well as to explore business opportunities or prepare patent applications. In this specific case, the team wants to assess the commercial potential of this new solution in the market.
For more information on ValorCannBio, visit the project's website here.
InnovPlantProtect (InPP) is promoting the “Plant Biotech talks”, at which internationally renowned experts in the fields of applied plant biotechnology and cereal crop biotechnology will share developments in these areas, as well as the new genomic techniques that have been applied to rice production and crop protection. The event will take place next Tuesday, September 24th, in the INIAV auditorium in Elvas.
The “Plant Biotech talks” kick off at 10 a.m. with the session entitled “Plant biotechnology, 1980-2024".. From Round-up Ready soy to Genome Editing and beyond” which will feature Paul Christou, Professor and director of the Applied Plant Biotechnology Laboratory at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) at the University of Lleida, in Catalonia, Spain, who will reveal the path and evolution of the field of Plant Biotechnology. The starting point will be the first commercial crop sold by the Multinational Company Monsanto, Roundup Ready Soybean, developed by the researcher through genetic transformation technology.
The second session entitled “Communicating science through art and archaeology” will take place at 11 a.m. with speaker Teresa Capell, Professor and Director of the Department of Plant Production and Forestry Sciences at ICREA, who will explore how science can be communicated through art, since the combination of art and science can be beneficial not only for science itself but for society as a whole. This practice has become a favorite for conveying science to the public.
Now Xin Huang, a researcher in the Department of Agriculture and Forestry Engineering at ICREA, will be the speaker at the third session entitled “Knocking our rice blast susceptibility genes through Genome Editing”, which will take place from 12h00. In this session, the guest speaker will talk about the genes responsible for plant susceptibility to pests and pathogens, in particular the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, This is the first time that we've heard of a pathogen that causes an important disease affecting the rice plant, pyriculariosis. Genome editing technologies that allow, in a very specific and controlled way, to alter genes in the plant, making it more tolerant to pathogens will be other topics covered in this session.
Participation in the event is free and not subject to registration.
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