Development of new seaweed based plant biostimulant products and understanding their mode of action

Plant biostimulant is a new class of agricultural input that has gained importance and wide acceptance in the last few years. Acadian Seaplants Limited, a marine biotechnology company, manufactures liquid and powdered Ascophyllum nodosum extract plant biostimulants. To maintain the leadership in plant biostimulants ASL has embarked on developing new A. nodosum based biostimulatns. This project will focus on new product development by adopting novel seaweed processing technologies, creating blends of seaweed extracts and functional ingredients. Further, more importantly, the physiological and molecular mode of action of the most promising products will be studied that will facilitate marketing of the new product(s).This project will train at eight post-doctoral fellows, three Ph.D. graduate students and two M.Sc. graduate students providing them with a unique opportunity to interact with industry.

Faculty Supervisor:

Balakrishnan Prithiviraj

Student:

Pushp Shukla

Partner:

Acadian Seaplants Limited

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Dalhousie University