Topics
Species
In the current context, society and the agri-food sector face the challenge of producing more quality food for an ever-growing population, but with fewer available resources: degraded soils, contaminated aquifers and water sources, less agrobiodiversity, high costs of fertilizers and agrochemicals, climate change, depopulation of agricultural areas and new legislation that regulates and limits the use of inputs.
Within the framework of this project, the Beyond Seeds Group has been working on the development and validation of multifunctional nanomaterials that allow maximizing crop yield and improving their response to biotic and abiotic stress factors .
Since 2023, this project has been coordinated by the company Cellbitec and has the participation of the company Nanointec (both belonging to the Beyond Seeds group) that develops the new nanotechnology in collaboration with the research group of Dr. José Manuel Delgado López (scientific coordinator of the project) from the University of Granada and the RNM151 Research Group – Agriculture and Environment in Arid Zones of the University of Almería.
The Nanoferti II technical team is made up of researchers Dr. José Manuel Delgado and Dr. Gloria Belén Ramírez, from the University of Granada, Dr. Miguel Guzmán, from the University of Almería and Dr. Andrés Cáceres and Dr. Ana Guzmán, from Nanointec and Cellbitec respectively.
The objective of this multidisciplinary team is to design nanomaterials composed of a carrier or nanotransporter, which also contain essential macro, micronutrients or bioactive molecules from natural extracts, and whose use and application can be evaluated under controlled conditions (with technologies such as the Gama Cero vertical farming system or the FITOBOT mass phenotyping robot), as well as in real conditions of a farmer/producer (greenhouse or open field).
As a result of the research carried out within the framework of the project, the company Nanointec already has products that will soon be on the market. At the end of this project in 2025, there will be a complete catalogue that will include tools and solutions with nanoMetic technology and that will be adapted to a model of sustainable, efficient and environmentally friendly agriculture.
The Project is funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities / State Research Agency (MICIN/AEI) , and by the European Union through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, Next Generation EU Funds of the European Union.
