Speakers - 2026

Current challenges of crop agriculture include depleted natural resources, plant diseases, and climate change-induced biotic and abiotic stresses that lead to losses of crop productivity. Such challenges are often exacerbated by the overuse of synthetic chemical inputs, such as pesticides and fertilizers to enhance crop performance. These synthetic chemicals threaten the environment and cause unsustainability in future agriculture. To address these issues, this study evaluates an eco-friendly biostimulant system utilizing date palm-isolated endophytic bacteria and fungal biochemical stimulants to optimize crop performance. The endophytic bacteria, isolated from date palms that continuously bears fruit all year, demonstrated robust phytohormone synthesis, specifically producing high levels of indole acetic acid, stress regulating ACC deaminase, and iron-chelating siderophores, which significantly boosts environmental resilience, and productivity. Moreover, isolated endophytic bacteria produce strong antifungal agents tested Fusarium sp. and Alternaria sp., providing biotic stress resistance under harsh conditions. Concurrently, tomato plants treated with azaphilone pigment (derived from Talaromyces fungi) exhibited enhanced morphological developments—including increased root hairs, trichomes, biomass, and root-to-shoot ratios—alongside a distinct salinity tolerance up to 150 mM NaCl. Ultimately, these findings highlight the potential of combined microbial and fungal biostimulants as a natural, scalable solution to improve germination, growth, and stress adaptation with enhanced performance and productivity in sustainable crop management.

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