Newton Fund - Novel Agricultural Bioactives from Microalgae

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 to

compete and replace chemical fertilser use. Biulding on previous work by this consortium, here we propose the

use of microalgae, an ancestor of land plants,as a sustainable source of high value organic compounds that help

crop growth; microalgae simply require natural sunlight and water to grow. The aim of this project is to identify

the compounds responsible for the increased plant growth and then to extract them. In this manner we have

contol of the exact amount of organic compound required for maximum crop growth.