Call for papers - Biostimulants in sustainable agriculture

Guest Editors

Adalberto Benavides-Mendoza, PhD, Antonio Narro Agrarian Autonomous University, Mexico
Sanhita Chakraborty, PhD, Texas A&M University, USA
Giacomo Cocetta, PhD, University of Milan, Italy
Antonio Ferrante, PhD, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa, Italy

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 15 May 2025

BMC Plant Biology launches the Collection, Biostimulants in sustainable agriculture. This collection seeks to gather research investigating the applications and mechanisms of action of biostimulants in sustainable agriculture, as well as their relevance in the context of global food security and environmental sustainability. Researchers are invited to submit articles on biostimulants' impact on plant growth, abiotic stress tolerance, soil health, and agroecosystems, covering microbial and non-microbial biostimulants.

New Content Item This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 2: Zero Hunger and SDG 15: Life on Land.

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Meet the Guest Editors

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Adalberto Benavides-Mendoza, PhD, Antonio Narro Agrarian Autonomous University, Mexico

Dr Benavides-Mendoza is a biologist who graduated from The Antonio Narro Agrarian Autonomous University and holds a Doctorate in Science from The Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Mexico. He is a Professor and Researcher in the Department of Horticulture at The Antonio Narro Agrarian Autonomous University, Mexico. His research interests include plant biostimulation, plant nutrition, and stress tolerance induction using nanometric or bulk species of essential and beneficial elements, biopolymers, and industrial or agricultural sludges. His work focuses on the relationship between plant biostimulation, plant nutrition, stress tolerance, and vegetable and fruit nutritional quality and biofortification.

Sanhita Chakraborty, PhD, Texas A&M University, USA

Dr Chakraborty is a plant molecular biologist specializing in plant physiology, plant biotechnology, plant development, crop science, plant-microbe interactions, molecular biology, microbiology, and environmental stress. Her research focuses on nitrogen-fixing plant-microbe associations and their improvement for climate-smart, sustainable agriculture, with a particular interest in the crosstalk between salinity stress and nitrogen-fixing associations. During her PhD at the University of Vermont, she discovered that salinity significantly regulates the early stages of nitrogen-fixing root nodule symbiosis at the transcriptional level. In her postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she studied the evolution and development of root nodule symbiosis and explored avenues to engineer this symbiosis into the bioenergy crop poplar. At Texas A&M University, she is currently investigating bioremediation strategies to combat heavy metal stress using root nodule symbiosis.

Giacomo Cocetta, PhD, University of Milan, Italy

Dr Cocetta earned his PhD in Plant Biology and Crop Productivity from the University of Milan in 2012. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the same university. His research focuses on the cultivation of horticultural species in protected and indoor environments, the study of abiotic stresses, the evaluation of biostimulant products, the identification of quality indices for horticultural production, and the management of the post-harvest supply chain. He has authored over 70 articles in international scientific journals.

Antonio Ferrante, PhD, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa, Italy

Dr Ferrante has been a Full Professor of Vegetables and Ornamental Crops at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa since March 2024. He has served as the General President of the Italian Society for Horticultural Sciences (SOI) since 2022 and has been a Corresponding Academician of the Accademia dei Georgofili since 2017. He graduated with honors in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Pisa in 1997 and obtained his PhD in Advanced Technologies in Horticulture from the same university in 2001. In 2000, he spent a year at the University of California, Davis. Dr Ferrante works closely with national and international research groups on the effects of abiotic stress on crops and leads numerous research projects. He has authored or co-authored over 230 scientific publications.

About the Collection

Biostimulants encompass a diverse range of bio-based organic and inorganic compounds, natural extracts (e.g. plant and seaweed extracts), humic substances, protein hydrolysates, nanomaterials, or substances with a plant growth promoting effect (e.g. peptides, amino acids, phytohormones, and other metabolites), as well as beneficial microorganisms (e.g. mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal fungi, and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria). Accordingly, they can be categorized into non-microbial and microbial biostimulants. When applied to plants or the rhizosphere, biostimulants have been reported to improve nutrient uptake by the roots and mobilization within the plants, water use efficiency, tolerance to abiotic stress, bioaccumulation of metabolites of interest, and crop productivity. For these reasons, they represent a promising approach to enhance sustainable agriculture and reduce the environmental impact of cropping systems.

Ongoing research in this field is crucial to understand the complex interactions between biostimulants, microorganisms and plants amidst a dynamic external environment, develop novel biostimulant formulations for specific agroecosystems, and optimize the application and integration of biostimulants in sustainable agricultural practices. By revealing the long-term effects of biostimulants on soil health, microbial biodiversity and ecosystem services, the use of biostimulants can help establishing resilient and environment friendly agricultural systems.

In support of UN Sustainable Development Goals SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 15 (Life on Land), BMC Plant Biology launches the collection, Biostimulants in sustainable agriculture. This collection seeks to gather research investigating the applications and mechanisms of action of biostimulants in sustainable agriculture, as well as their relevance in the context of global food security and environmental sustainability. We invite researchers and experts in the field to submit research articles that explore, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Effects of microbial and/or non-microbial biostimulants on plant physiology, vegetative growth and development, or other parameters
The role and applications of beneficial microorganisms, including bacteria (plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria) and fungi (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi), as biostimulants in sustainable agriculture
The role and applications of non-microbial biostimulants (e.g. biochar, protein hydrolysates, humic substances and humic and fulvic acids, free amino acids, chitin and chitosan derivatives, and plant and seaweed extracts) in sustainable agriculture
The role and applications of biostimulants to enhance abiotic stress tolerance
Development of novel biostimulant formulations, including synergistic mixtures of these biostimulants, to improve plant growth and resilience to stress
The role of plant biostimulants in improving soil chemistry, fertility and microbiome diversity
Long-term effects of biostimulants on soil health, microbial biodiversity and agroecosystem services

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Biostimulants in sustainable agriculture" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.