According to the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, world potato production could double in the next 10 years. Although in Spain the forecasts are not so positive (in 2023 the area dedicated to this crop fell by 2.5% to 62,000 hectares, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food), the global reality is that the potato is an expanding crop in the search for a balance between greater agricultural production and the growth of the world’s population.
Seipasa, a Spanish company specialising in the development, formulation and production of bioinsecticide, biofungicide, biostimulant and nutritional treatments for agriculture, has placed the potato at the centre of its bioprotection strategies to develop new alternatives for disease control.
It is in this niche of its biocontrol portfolio that Septum appears, a natural solution with fungicidal action that has a preventive and curative effect on diseases such as powdery mildew, early blight and Phytophthora infestans or potato downy mildew.
“Septum is an alternative that gives us excellent results in potatoes, thanks to its effectiveness in quickly stopping the progress of the disease, its ease of use and the absence of chemical residues in the harvest”, says Andrés Sánchez, Seipasa’s sales manager in Castilla-León and Galicia, the two regions with the most hectares of potato in Spain.
Septum has been developed from using a combination of key molecules from the extract of Equisetum arvense to ensure maximum efficacy in preventing and protecting against fungal diseases.
Through its content of phenols, saponins, flavonoids and silicic acid, Septum exerts a preventive action that provides structural stability to plant cells and mechanical resistance to fungal propagation, as well as triggering a powerful physiological defence response. The product also has a curative effect, causing the breakdown and dehydration of fungal tissues.
Septum and R&D support
Septum has a strong R&D background that has allowed Seipasa to maximise its knowledge of the product’s biocontrol capabilities.
The company has developed a research project with the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid which, over the course of 3 years, has allowed the creation of a complete descriptive map of the 93 different active ingredients and more than 20 functional groups that make up the product.
When working with a botanical extract, it is very important to ensure its efficacy, based on its ability to be reproduced in different batches. This can only be achieved by characterising each of the active ingredients, identifying their functionality and ensuring that they are present in the same quantity and quality in each batch.
Innovation for agricultural biocontrol
The research project with the CBGP has also developed an RNAseq map that has enabled the identification of enhanced gene expression pathways in the host plant following product application.
In other words, the research has led to a deeper understanding of the preventive effect of the product before a pathogen arrives. RNAseq confirms Septum’s ability to enhance and modify certain gene expression pathways in the plant, enabling it to stimulate its induced resistance system and defend itself against attack by a pathogen, in this case a fungus.
The CBGP is one of the world’s reference centres for knowledge of how plants and their associated micro-organisms work.
“This is a product backed by years of research, science and knowledge that we are putting in the hands of growers. Septum is not just any Equisetum, it is Seipasa’s Equisetum arvense. Our Natural Technology model is based on in-depth knowledge of the active ingredients we work with, and Septum is an excellent example of this,” says Andrés Sánchez.
Seipasa participates in the Potato International Conference in El Carpio, Valladolid, with a presentation centred on Septum, based on the biological innovation that the product provides for the effective control of potato diseases.