BIOSUVEG project partners

UNIVERSITA' DI TORINO - Dpt DISAFA https://www.disafa.unito.it

The University of Turin (UNITO) is a major Italian multi-disciplinary teaching (around 70000 students) and research University. The mission of Department of Agricultural, Forest, and Food Sciences (DISAFA) is to provide educational and research services based on 120 full-time scientists. The DISAFA staff contributes yearly to more than 400 peer-reviewed scientific papers and manages research projects for a total of more than 6 M€. DISAFA hosts several specialized research platforms, among them the new, fully automatized Plant Phenotyping Platform. Within DISAFA, the PlantStresslab group, headed by Prof. A. Schubert, focuses on crop adaptation to environmental stress and coordinates international projects such as H2020 TOMRES. Within BIOSUVEG, the DISAFA collaborates with the Management Dept. of UNITO, which contributes with its longstanding expertise on business creation and development, and on dissemination and approach to consumers.

The role of UNITO in BIOSUVEG is coordination and management of the project, preliminary testing of formulations under nutritional stress, testing of biostimulant in commercial greenhouse conditions, support for product exploitation plan and coordination and major contribution to the dissemination and communication activities.

GRUPO AN - https://www.grupoan.com

Grupo AN is the biggest cooperative in Spain, based on 42000 farmers. Through a solid business infrastructure, from Grupo AN offers to cooperative farmers everything they need to produce, optimizing the development of their activity, guaranteeing the highest quality in their products thanks to total control of their cycles and offering absolute commercial security in the management of productions. The group commercialises cereal (the biggest operator in Spain), fruit and vegetables, poultry (fourth operator in Spain) and others.

Grupo AN contributes to the project by validating in T3 in field conditions the product developed by the consosrtium in two different horticultural crops in Spain. Grupo AN collaborates also in dissemination activities.

TUM-Technische Universität München - Group ‘Biotechnology of Natural Products’ - https://www.tum.de

The Technische Universität München (TUM) has earned a high international reputation that is apparent from research collaborations with more than 140 partner Universities, and its involvement in more than 100 EU projects. TUM's outstanding scientists are provided with a working environment that supports the evolution of highly innovative, adventurous projects in a context of “knowledge exchange”. TUM’s 13 faculties provide an excellent environment for research and for the education of 37,343 students, one third of them women. The TUM group ‘Biotechnology of Natural Products’ works within the department Food and Nutrition at the Center of Life and Food Sciences, Land Use and Environment in Weihenstephan, Freising, Germany. This group has concentrated on investigating plant physiology using chemical-analytical, biochemical and molecular biological methods. Current activities focus on the biosynthesis and metabolism of volatiles and flavonoids/anthocyanins as well as the biological function of allergens during fruit ripening.

Main TUM's contribution to BIOSUVEG focuses on the analysis and characterization of secondary (flavonoids and carotenoid) compounds of nutritional value in fruits of tomato and pepper issued from both preliminary testing of biostimulant formulations and testing under commercial conditions. TUM collaborates also in dissemination activities.

STRIGOLAB - https://strigolab.eu

StrigoLab is an Italian company, founded in 2013 as a spin-off of the University of Turin and specialized in the production and distribution of innovative plant molecules, in particular connected to the novel plant hormones strigolactones. Recently, StrigoLab expanded its activity also to the production of a natural extract enriched in bioactive compounds from roots of vegetable crops, which proved to possess strigolactone-like and crop biostimulating properties in the H2020 TOMRES project. The aim of StrigoLab is to obtain support and expert collaboration within BIOSUVEG to be able to bring this product to market. StrigoLab contributes to BIOSUVEG by producing the plant extract, devising the most suitable formulation for the biostimulant to be tested in the field trials, assessing market potential and planning the route to a commercial exploitation of the novel biostimulant. Furthermore, StrigoLab performs the role of exploiting partner within the consortium.