Summary
This narrative review examines the potential of exogenous biostimulants, microbials, and plant hormones to enhance crop resilience to climate stress through modulation of endogenous plant regulatory pathways. The authors argue that whilst these interventions offer rapid, non-permanent improvements in stress tolerance and represent an underexplored approach to maintaining productivity under climate change, their deployment is severely constrained by outdated and scientifically unsound regulatory frameworks that classify them as pesticides. The review proposes a modernised legislative framework to enable safe, effective use of these tools to strengthen cropping system resilience.
Regional applicability
The findings and regulatory critique are relevant to United Kingdom agriculture, particularly as climate variability intensifies. However, the specific applicability depends on whether UK and EU regulatory bodies adopt the proposed framework for biostimulant oversight; current UK/EU regulations remain restrictive, so implementation of the authors' recommendations would be necessary for direct practical application.
Key measures
Plant stress response mechanisms; crop resilience to temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather stress; regulatory classification and oversight of biostimulants and plant hormones
Outcomes reported
The review examines how exogenous biostimulants, microbials, and plant hormones can modulate natural plant stress response mechanisms to improve crop resilience to climate-induced stresses. It evaluates the regulatory barriers constraining the deployment of these tools and proposes a framework for modernising legislation to enable their use.
Topic tags
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