Newton Fund - Novel Agricultural Bioactives from Microalgae

自20世纪50年代以来，为了应对不断增长的粮食消费，化肥的使用呈指数级增长。化肥的使用导致了污染、植物易患病、支持土壤生命的微生物减少等。另一方面，有机肥改善土壤结构，提高保水能力，提高土壤肥力，易被微生物分解。尽管在过去的几十年里，人们一直在研究增加有机肥使用的方法，但生产成本、维持不断增长的人口所需的数量和技术创新都落后于与化肥的使用竞争和取代化肥的使用。在该联盟先前工作的基础上，我们建议使用微藻作为陆地植物的祖先，作为高价值有机化合物的可持续来源，帮助作物生长；微藻只需要自然的阳光和水来生长。这个项目的目的是确定促进植物生长的化合物，然后提取它们。通过这种方式，我们可以控制作物最大生长所需的有机化合物的确切数量。

Since the1950s the use of chemical fertilers has grown exponentially to cope with the increased consumption of food. The use of chemical fertilsers has led to contamination, disease prone plants, reduction of microbial organisms that support soil life, etc. On the other hand organic fertilizers improve soil structure, improve water retention, enhance soil fertility and can be easily broken down by microorganisms. Although, methods to increase the organic fertilizer use have been looked into for the last few decades, the cost of production, the amounts needed to sustain the growing population and technological innovations are lagging behind tocompete and replace chemical fertilser use. Biulding on previous work by this consortium, here we propose theuse of microalgae, an ancestor of land plants,as a sustainable source of high value organic compounds that helpcrop growth; microalgae simply require natural sunlight and water to grow. The aim of this project is to identifythe compounds responsible for the increased plant growth and then to extract them. In this manner we havecontol of the exact amount of organic compound required for maximum crop growth.