InnovPlantProtect (InPP) was present at the conference “Building value together”, organized by our associate FNOP - National Association of Fruit and Vegetable Producers' Organizations.
InPP's executive director, António Saraiva, moderated the panel “Sustainability that generates value: The role of ESG in the future of the sector”, which included interventions from Catarina Pinto Correia (VdA), Cristina Câmara (APED), Filipa Saldanha (Crédito Agrícola), Joana Oom de Sousa (Sovena) and Rui Veríssimo Baptista (Companhia das Lezírias).
The opening session was given by Domingos dos Santos, president of FNOP and a member of CoLAB's Board of Directors of our CoLAB.
The meeting brought together producer organizations, farmers, companies, experts and political decision-makers to discuss the current challenges and look to the future of the national fruit and vegetable sector.
With the participation of national and international experts, the conference was a privileged space for sharing experiences and strategic reflection, focusing on the organization of production and the role of public policies in promoting sustainable growth.
Congratulations to FNOP for the initiative and the ability to bring together a panel of excellent speakers, making this conference a relevant and topical milestone for the sector.
In viticulture, every little decision has an impact: on the soil, on the health of the plants and on the quality of the grapes that form the basis of the wine that reaches our table. The future of viticulture may depend on a single biosolution. Or a hundred. In VINNY, an ambitious European project of which InPP is a part, researchers from ten countries are looking for bioactives capable of curbing vine diseases - and, at the same time, reducing dependence on synthetic agrochemicals. What's at stake is not just science: it's the sustainability of this industry.
The aim of the VINNY project is simple but transformative: develop and implement effective, sustainable solutions and adaptable to the needs of winegrowers in various European countries, creating environmentally friendly biopesticides and biofertilizers, and advanced nano-encapsulation technologies, to reduce dependence on conventional chemicals and promote a healthier ecosystem and a better environment and a circular viticulture.
And at the heart of this mission is an essential cog in the wheel: the daily work of the researchers who search for answers invisible to the human eye - as is the case with Tiago Amaro, a researcher at InPP.
Image credits: VINNY Project
Searching for the Guardians of the Vine
The road to these new biosolutions begins in the field, with the vine. The initial work of Tiago Amaro, started in September 2024 and focuses on identifying and isolating microorganisms naturally present in the vines themselves, in samples received from partners in Portugal, Spain, Austria and Denmark.
From grapes, sticks or woody fragments, small microscopic worlds arrive in the laboratory that may contain the natural weapons needed to fighting three major threats to the vineyard, with a direct impact on farm profitability: - A gray mold (Botrytis cinerea) and blue mold (Penicillium expansum): Fungi that cause post-harvest diseases, In the case of wine grapes, this affects the quality of the wine and makes it completely impossible to sell table grapes. - The vine tumors: Caused by bacteria Allorhizobium vitis, This disease affects the plant in the field, causing leaf fall and reduced grape production.
Tiago Amaro, InnovPlantProtect researcher, identifying and isolating bacteria as part of the VINNY project. Image credits: InnovPlantProtect - Inês Ferreira
After isolating the microorganisms, Tiago dedicated himself to creating libraries of bacteria. What is a ‘Bacteria Library’? In the context of the investigation, a bacteria library is an organized and catalogued collection of bacteria isolated from different sources. It allows scientists to test each strain of bacteria against specific pathogens, constituting a vast catalog of potential biological ‘superheroes’ for plant protection.
This rigorous screening, which has already led to the analysis of more than 190 bacteria of this library is the first line of defense. The team selects the best candidates with the potential to be used as biological control agents against the diseases under study.
The Power of European Collaboration
What if the solution to protecting Portuguese vineyards is hidden in a Danish grape? Or in a bacterium isolated in Spain? One of the most exciting aspects of the project is its truly collaborative dimension, where researchers from ten countries are working in parallel, sharing answers, challenges and microorganisms in search of effective biosolutions for the whole of Europe.
“All the solutions found will be shared, all the solutions will be tested by all the partners and it will be possible to build a ‘library of solutions’ against the various vine diseases“ emphasizes researcher Tiago Amaro.
The sharing of bacteria and extracts from different ecosystems (Portugal, Spain, Denmark and Austria) is crucial. An effective bacterium in Denmark could be the key to protecting Portuguese vineyards, and vice versa. This exchange of biological solutions, one of the innovative pillars of the project, makes it possible to exploit the microbial biodiversity beyond national borders. InPP has the fundamental role of testing, in grapes, the solutions discovered by our team as well as by other national and European partners.
This diversity of tests is a bet on the future: microorganisms that don't prove effective against vine diseases could be the solution for pathologies in other crops.
Left photo: Tiago Amaro, InPP researcher, observing a grapevine leaf, the target crop of the VINNY project, Right photo: Potted grapevine plants in the InPP greenhouse, ready to test the solutions found by the various VINNY partners. Image credits: InnovPlantProtect - Inês Ferreira
The Real Test: From the Lab to the Field
After selection in the laboratory, the next step - the formulation of the most promising bacteria - will be carried out in Portugal and Spain, at the University of Minho and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. But it is in the field-testing phase that the greatest challenge of plant protection science lies, because even brilliant results in the laboratory can fail in the field. Formulation is the process that turns a bacterium into a product - stable, applicable and compatible with the farmer's needs.
Tiago Amaro emphasizes necessary resilience:
Field Uncertainty: Often, promising solutions in the laboratory or greenhouse are not as effective when applied in the field, due to environmental variables (climate, soil, etc.).
The Time Factor: Diseases such as Allorhizobium vitis may take a long time to develop, or the infection may not be relevant in certain years, which makes it difficult to obtain robust conclusions.
The Agricultural Cycle: It is necessary to test the formulation in the field during three to five consecutive years, and recording all the variations observed. With only one harvest a year, this process requires patience and persistence.
In total, from the discovery of a promising bacterium to the creation of a formulated product, proven to be effective and ready for the market, it can take around 10 years - a real test of any scientist's resilience.
Customized solutions: the new requirement of modern agriculture
The final challenge is to ensure that the tests are relevant to the producer's reality. The current trend in the agricultural sector is the search for customized solutions, adapted to the specific conditions of the farms: “There has to be a solution for every field and every farmer”, says the researcher.
This personalized approach requires more science, more rigor and more local knowledge - exactly what VINNY seeks to build.
A Europe united by science and the vine
InPP is part of this consortium, made up of 19 partners from ten countries, The project is led by the University of Minho and funded by the Horizon Europe program.
Together, they seek to answer a question that could shape the future of European viticulture: Will it be possible to find effective biosolutions for all partner countries?
The answer is still being written - in laboratories, in experimental vineyards, in fields in different climates and geographies. And it's made up of small discoveries, many frustrations and a huge commitment to science.
Because protecting the vineyard of the future is not just a technical ambition. It is a cultural, economic and environmental commitment. And VINNY is helping to design that future - one microorganism at a time.
The final workshop highlighted three years of research dedicated to the early detection of pathogens in crops such as wheat and olive groves.
The project AlViGen has reached its final stretch, concluding three years of research focused on the genomic surveillance of agricultural diseases. The results now presented promise to strengthen the Alentejo agricultural sector's ability to respond to emerging phytosanitary threats.
On the day October 23rd, The final project workshop, The event brought together researchers, producers and technicians to share results and reflect on the future of genomic surveillance in Portuguese agriculture.
A pioneering genomic surveillance center
During AlViGen, the Alentejo's first genomic surveillance center, an infrastructure with capacity for early detection of diseases in strategic crops such as wheat and olive grove. This breakthrough marks a decisive step towards a more precise, sustainable and science-based agriculture.
Results and scientific contributions
Using innovative molecular tools, the project team succeeded:
Identify pathogenic fungi before visible symptoms appear on the plants;
Characterizing yellow rust strains, genetically linking them to others known at a global level;
Detecting resistance genes in wheat to the strains currently present in Portugal;
Developing diagnostic methods able to distinguish the different species of the fungus that causes gafa in olive groves.
During the workshop, the potential of the analysis of the airborne fungi community as a tool for early warning for multiple pathogens, allowing for more effective and preventive management of crop diseases.
From research to practical application
The event ended with a debate on how transform AlViGen results in a detection and warning service accessible to the agricultural sector. The initiative reflects the joint commitment between science, innovation and production, with a view to protecting national agriculture from the challenges of the future.
Partnerships and thanks
InnovPlantProtect would like to thank all the partners and funders of the project: University of Évora, John Innes Centre, INIAV, De Prado, CERSUL, Eugénio de Almeida Foundation, Torre das Figueiras Estate, Almojanda, Malheiro Estate, Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary (DGAV), la Caixa“ Foundation”, BPI Bank e Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).
InnovPlantProtect (InPP) celebrated during the 38th Ovibeja two partnership protocols, with the Centro Operativo e de Tecnologia de Regadio (COTR) and with the Portugal Nuts - Dried Fruit Promotion Association.
Within the scope of the partnership with COTR, InPP proposes to develop, together with the competence center for national irrigation and its members, strategies to solve the challenges posed to agricultural production by pests and diseases, as well as providing services to the organization's member partners. The COTR, for its part, is willing to provide support in mapping the main challenges facing its members in terms of pests and diseases, and to make them aware of the InPP and its capabilities.
Gonçalo Morais Tristão, chairman of the board of COTR, and Pedro Fevereiro, executive director of InPP
The protocol with Portugal Nuts aims to collaborate on projects on the challenges facing nuts, including the development of new sustainable products and analytical and digital services for crop protection against pests and diseases, particularly for nut crops. Portugal Nuts, for its part, aims to put its members in touch with the InPP, introduce them to the services provided by CoLAB and support the InPP in identifying producers who meet the conditions for carrying out pilot projects and field trials.
João Roseiro, member of the board of Portugal Nuts, representing SLM Partners, and Pedro Fevereiro, executive director of InPP
The collaborative laboratory (CoLAB) InnovPlantProtect (InPP) was present at the Ovibeja 2022, no stand 64 of Institutional Pavilion, The event will take place at the Manuel de Castro e Brito Fair and Exhibition Park, in Beja, between April 21 and 25, 2022.
At the stand, it was possible to find out more about InPP's activity in the field of developing bio-inspired solutions for protecting crops against pests and diseases, including specific services and products that CoLAB is already prepared to offer to different sectors.
Part of the 33-strong team of researchers was on site throughout the five days of the fair to demonstrate InPP's various capabilities to visitors.
The Department of New Biopesticides, for example, showed biological control agents (BCA) - fungi and bacteria in Petri dishes - as well as healthy rice plants infected with the fungus Magnaportheoryzae, which causes rice pyriculariosis, and some BCA which inhibit the M. oryzae. The Department of Formulations and Process Development took samples demonstrating the encapsulation of active biocontrol agents (pre- and post-processing), allowing visitors to produce alginate “balls” (small capsules) with their own hands.
Researchers from the Department of Data Management and Risk Analysis talked about microbiome analysis and the development of risk models, and demonstrated the dashboard of a weather calculator developed at InPP. In terms of Protection of Specific Crops, It was also possible to learn more about the laboratory services we offer, namely molecular identification and diagnosis, as well as how biocontrol tests work. in vitro, and monitor the work carried out on the wheat disease yellow rust, among many others.
Videos, photos and presentations were always available on a monitor, so that visitors could virtually “enter” our house, laboratories, fieldwork, events and other initiatives, as well as chat with the team present to welcome them.
Within the Saturday, April 23rd at 3pm, In the ACOS Auditorium, the InPP organized a colloquium on the subject of “Protecting crops to feed the world: from soil microorganisms to pest and disease monitoring techniques”.
The executive director of InPP took part in this conference, Pedro February, who presented CoLAB, iLaria Marengo, director of the Monitoring and Diagnostics department, who spoke about remote sensing applied to crop protection, and Ricardo Ramiro, director of the Data Management and Risk Analysis department, who addressed the topic of the soil microbiome.
Pedro Fevereiro also took part in the seminar ACOS - The Southern Farmers' Association organized on the 23rd at 10:30 a.m., entitled “How to feed the planet?”, the theme of Ovibeja 2022, at the ACOS Auditorium, and at the colloquium “The European Green Agenda. Agricultural sustainability and food sovereignty”, which took place at the Friday, April 22nd at 4pm, at the Expobeja Auditorium.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
“Consultório das Plantas” was the name of the activity aimed at the youngest that InPP held on Saturday 23rd, at around 4pm, as part of the programming of the Alentejo Agricultural and Agri-Food Biotechnology Center (Centro de Biotecnologia Agricola e Agro-Alimentar do Alentejo) (CEBAL) at the 38th Ovibeja.
To demonstrate the importance of treating diseased plants with environmentally sustainable solutions, InPP researcher Tânia Pinto took samples of olive trees infected with peacock's eye, a disease caused by the fungus Spilocaea oleaginea, and Petri dishes with fungi, to explain the importance of analyzing the pathogen in search of a solution.
Dr. Tânia sprayed the diseased sample with a “biomedicine” spray and showed examples of healthy olive trees so that the young visitors could see the difference.
Within the sunday late morning, The executive director of InPP, Pedro Fevereiro, will be with CEBAL for an informal chat with visitors.
PARTNERSHIP PROTOCOLS
At Ovibeja, InPP signed two partnership protocols with COTR - Centro Operativo e de Tecnologia de Regadio and Portugal Nuts - Associação Promoção Frutos Secos, with a view to collaborating in the development of solutions to protect crops against pests and diseases. Read more.
Today, three classes from Alcáçova Primary School planted nearly two dozen trees next to the Amoreira Aqueduct in Elvas, in an initiative that brought together the school, the InnovPlantProtect sustainability team, the Elven municipality and Bolschare.
It was with tiny hands and feet, but a lot of gumption and willpower, that around 50 students from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of school from the Alcáçova Primary School, In Elvas, they took shovels, hoes, watering cans, buckets and 19 one-meter-high almond trees to plant them in the area around the so-called “Amoreira arches” in Rossio de São Francisco, next to the historic Elven aqueduct.
They had the help of the teachers, the technicians from SOF Jardins and the researchers from the sustainability team of the InnovPlantProtect (InPP), InPP Greeners, which launched this action, Cláudia Almeida Silva, Cátia Patrício, Cristina Azevedo e Joana Castro. And the weather: after initially being planned to mark World Tree Day 2022, on March 21, the activity took place this afternoon, April 6, with the sun shining.
The area where the planting took place belongs to the Elvas City Council (CME) and the almond trees were donated by Bolschare. With this action, InPP Greeners sought to make elementary school students aware of the importance of trees for life. The almond trees were chosen because not only are they part of the work being carried out by InPP, but they are also of great economic interest to the region and are very beautiful landscape trees.
The CME immediately embraced this initiative “for obvious reasons”, says Councillor Hermenegildo Rodrigues, who was on the ground today accompanying the activities. “As decision-makers, we have to value changes in habits and attitudes when it comes to the ecological footprint and, above all, involve those who will be the future decision-makers,” said the councillor.
Simão, aged 7, was one of those who tried his hand at eating an almond - there are already mature almond trees there; he was surprised when InPP department director and Greeners member Cristina Azevedo showed the children the drupe's epicarp, with its characteristic green color. For Simão, “if there weren't trees, the world wouldn't have trees”, which are also very important “because they give us apples and pears”.
This was “a very rich initiative, because the students need this kind of activity, which involves them, associates them with the city and gives them the ‘power to do’”, observed Ana Teresa Babinha, a 2nd grade teacher. “And there was an opportunity for everyone to do it, to try their hand at planting,” said the teacher, who praised the action for getting the children to actually “get their hands dirty”.
Ana Teresa Babinha also highlighted the fact that the students will now be responsible for looking after these almond trees, in a system yet to be defined by the school. What's more, it's an activity “that will come to life in the classroom”, because it's an opportunity to approach the topic of the importance of trees in a new way in the context of formal learning.
The InPP Greeners are InnovPlantProtect's (InPP) sustainability team, created at the end of 2021 to share knowledge and good practices that lead to the creation of more sustainable laboratories and institutions, as well as promoting the adoption of more sustainable behaviors by all citizens. Follow them on Twitter at @InPPGreeners or contact them by email at inpp.greeners@iplantprotect.pt.
Português 
English