Publicaties

New eco-friendly approaches are required to improve plant biomass production. Beneficial plant growth-promoting (PGP) bacteria may be exploited as excellent and efficient biotechnological tools to improve plant growth in various - including stressful - environments. We present an overview of bacterial mechanisms which contribute to plant health, growth, and development. Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) can interact with plants ...

Bacterial plant pests cause economically important losses in agricultural crops. In order to guarantee the long-term accessibility, the quality and authenticity of reference bacterial, three well-established public bacteria collections (BCCM/LMG, CFBP and NCPPB) have associated within Q-Bacco-net, stimulated by QBOL Bacteria WP leader (ILVO) and supported by EPPO. It was decided to accept and maintain the bacterial reference strains in at least ...

The development of a plant health barometer, an instrument to measure the general phytosanitary situation on a national level (Belgium) and on a yearly basis and to monitor its evolution over time, is described. The elaboration of a set of 13 plant health indicators (PHI's) as the basis for the plant health barometer is discussed. These indicators were weighted by experts - including scientists, policy makers and agro-industrial representatives ...

BackgroundThe use of medicinal plants is integral to global healthcare systems, with Sub-Saharan Africa maintaining a robust tradition of herbal medicine alongside Western-oriented healthcare. As migrant communities tend to continue traditional herbal practices after migration, documenting this use is vital to develop culturally sensitive healthcare. This study investigates plant usage and perspectives in the context of sexual and reproductive ...

At the ILVO Plant Sciences Unit, one of our key missions is to ensure healthy crops for a sustainable agricultural production. In this context it is important to monitor the biodiversity of the environment in the vicinity of the plants, for both harmful and beneficial (micro-)organisms. Recently, we have developed several methods to accomplish this by means of high-throughput-sequencing (HTS) of DNA or RNA.
Here, we highlight some of the ...

Biochar, a solid coproduct of biomass pyrolysis, has recently been proposed as soil mendment in agriculture. We studied the effect of biochar on soil and substrate physicochemical properties, plant growth, disease susceptibility and rhizosphere microbiology in two contrasting cropping systems, i.e., lettuce grown in field soil and strawberry grown in white peat. For both systems, changes in the physicochemical properties of the plant growth ...

We have applied a state-of-the-art environmental sustainability assessment to an energy positive sewage treatment plant, its supply chain and resource recovery processes. Resource recovery occurred through digestion of sewage sludge resulting in digestate and burning of the produced biogas with electricity generation. The digestate was after composting applied to land as a fertilizer. Important aspects of our study are: measurement of greenhouse ...