US-12622434-B2 - Protective composition against damage to plants, repairer and stimulating their tissues growth

US12622434B2US 12622434 B2US12622434 B2US 12622434B2US-12622434-B2

Abstract

A protective composition against damage to plants caused by biotic and abiotic stress agents, and repairing and stimulating the growth of their tissues, composed of plant extracts enriched in phenols, flavonoids, and anthocyanins, and which also works as a plant growth stimulant, without cause morphological alterations in the plant tissues in which it is applied.

Inventors

Beatriz Flores SAMANIEGO

Assignees

Centro de Tecnologia y Desarrollo Mezfer S.C.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20220824

Claims (14)

1 . An agricultural composition comprising an Aloe vera extract having a specific concentration of phenols, and an anthocyanin-rich plant dye having a specific concentration of anthocyanins, wherein the Aloe vera extract is present in an amount of 80% w/w-94% w/w, and the anthocyanin-rich plant dye is present in an amount of 6-20% w/w, wherein the specific concentration of phenols in the Aloe vera extract together the specific concentration of anthocyanins in the anthocyanin-rich plant dye promote the regeneration of plant tissue damaged by biotic and/or abiotic stress agents, the specific concentration of phenols in the Aloe vera extract being 10 mg/L to 20 mg/L, and the specific concentration of anthocyanins in the anthocyanin-rich plant dye being 100 mg/L to 400 mg/L, wherein the Aloe vera extract is an extract of Aloe vera gel heated at a temperature of 45-55° C. for a time of 10-20 hours, and the anthocyanin-rich plant dye is a purple corn dye or a purple onion dye.
2 . The agricultural composition according to claim 1 , wherein the agricultural composition further comprises between 10% and 7% of free corn amino acids; and/or between 0.2% and 0.4% xanthan gum; and/or between 10% and 20% of a vegetable extract of purslane, and/or between 0.005% and 0.01% by weight of molasses.
3 . The agricultural composition according to claim 1 , wherein the agricultural composition is adapted to be sprayed on aerial parts, root ball, or soil of crops, diluted at a ratio of between 1-2 L of the agricultural composition in 100-300 liters of water.
4 . The agricultural composition according to claim 2 , wherein the agricultural composition is adapted to be sprayed on aerial parts, root ball, or soil of crops, diluted at a ratio of between 1-2 L of the agricultural composition in 100-300 liters of water.
5 . The agricultural composition according to claim 1 , wherein the agricultural composition is stable for up to 2 years at a temperature between 25 and 45° C.
6 . The agricultural composition according to claim 2 , wherein the agricultural composition is stable for up to 2 years at a temperature between 25 and 45° C.
7 . The agricultural composition as in any of claims 1-4 , wherein the biotic stress agents are selected from the group consisting of fungi, bacteria, viruses, and pest insects; and the abiotic stress agents are selected from the group consisting in salinity, drought, cold and/or changes in pH.
8 . A method for obtaining the agricultural composition against damage to plants, and repairing and stimulating the growth of their tissues of claim 1 , characterized in that it comprises the steps of: a) pour Aloe vera gel into a heating tank and let it heat to a temperature between 45 and 55° C. for a period of time between 10 and 20 hours to increase the content of phenols and flavonoids in the Aloe vera gel; b) filter the heated gel to remove insoluble challenges and obtain an Aloe vera extract; c) grind plant matter rich in anthocyanins in a hammer mill and place the ground material in a stirring tank with 70° ethanol in a ratio of 1/50 (kg/L), adjusting the pH of the solution between 3 and 4 with 50% HCl; d) keep the solution from step c) under stirring and heating at a temperature between 95 and 100° C. for a period of time of 60 to 75 minutes, and then continue stirring for a period of time of 20 to 24 hours until reach room temperature to obtain a cold extract; e) filter the cold extract through gauze to retain the remains of plant material, to obtain a plant dye rich in anthocyanins; f) dilute the Aloe vera extract from step b) to a concentration of between 10 and 20 mg/l of phenols; and g) mix the diluted Aloe vera extract from step f) with the dye from step e) in a stirring tank in an amount of between 80 and 96% of Aloe vera extract, and between 6 and 20% of the vegetable dye to obtain the composition of claim 1 .
9 . The method according to claim 8 , characterized in that the anthocyanin-rich plant dye rich in anthocyanins is selected from the group consisting of purple corn or purple onion.
10 . The method according to claim 8 , wherein the process further comprises the step of: h) adding to the composition of step g) between 5 and 7% of free corn amino acids; and/or between 0.2 and 0.4% xanthan gum; and/or between 10 and 20% of a vegetable extract of purslane; and/or between 0.005 and 0.01% molasses.
11 . The method according to claim 9 , wherein the process further comprises the step of: h) adding to the composition of step g) between 5 and 7% of free corn amino acids; and/or between 0.2 and 0.4% xanthan gum; and/or between 10 and 20% of a vegetable extract of purslane; and/or between 0.005 and 0.01% molasses.
12 . The method according to claim 10 , wherein the free corn amino acids are obtained by a process comprising the steps: i) grinding corn kernels in a disc mill 3 to 4 times to reduce the particle size; ii) mixing the ground corn with phosphate buffer at pH 4.6 in a 1/2 ratio (kg/L) in an agitation tank; iii) heating the mixture from step ii) to a temperature between 6° and 65° C., and adding between 8 and 9 g of papain and between 4 and 5 g of cellulase for each kg of ground corn; iv) keeping the mixture from step iii) stirred at 60° C. for a period of time of 100 to 120 hours to completely hydrolyze the corn proteins; v) decanting the hydrolyzate to settle the corn residues and recover the supernatant and; vi) centrifuging the supernatant at 10,000 rpm with a basket centrifuge to obtain free maize amino acids.
13 . A method of applying the agrochemical composition of any of the claims 1-6 for the regeneration of plant tissue of plants damaged by biotic and/or abiotic stress agents, wherein the biotic stress agents are selected from the group consisting of fungi, bacteria, viruses, and pest insects; and the abiotic stress agents are selected from the group consisting in salinity, drought, cold and/or changes in pH.
14 . A method of applying the agrochemical composition of claim 13 , wherein the agricultural composition is sprayed on aerial parts, root ball, or soil of crops, said agricultural composition being diluted at a ratio of between 1-2 L of the agricultural composition in 100-300 liters of water.

Description

The present invention relates to a protective composition against damage to plants, which repairs and stimulates their tissues growth, and more particularly relates to a composition based on plant extracts enriched in phenols, flavonoids, and anthocyanins, which protects plants against damage caused by biotic and abiotic stress agents, and that also provides a growth-stimulating and repairing effect on plant tissues, increasing the productivity of the crops to which it is applied. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Monocultures are controlled environments that require constant intervention by farmers in order to maintain the good health of the cultivated plants, since being organisms with so little genetic variability, they are susceptible to easily being damaged by biotic and abiotic stress agents. In addition, most biotic and abiotic stress agents cause irreversible damage to the aerial structures of crops, which greatly restricts effective treatment options; so the affected plants must be discarded as viable production units, even when they survive. In most cases, plants damaged by biotic or abiotic stress agents rarely can be used as producer organisms, so farmers prefer to discard them avoiding inversion of resources to their maintenance. However, late in the crop cycle, the loss of these damaged plants can greatly decrease production yields, since new healthy organisms cannot replace them. Most of the available treatments on market, are only focused on the control of biotic stress agents such as phytopathogenic and are intended solely to reduce the number of infectious agents so that they cannot continue with the infection process in new organisms. However, these treatments are not designed to prevent or repair the damage caused to the affected plant tissue, so the plant that has already been subjected to infection hardly has sufficient energy reserves to be able to recover from damage caused by biotic stress agents. Notwithstanding, there are currently some formulations to control damage caused by abiotic stress agents on plant tissues, which use compounds of plant origin as active ingredients. Among the available options are compositions with Aloe vera extracts, which are used as protective agents against physical damage. For example, the development described in Patent Application MX/a/2015/010277 uses an Aloe vera extract in a composition proportion of between 70 and 92%, together with other compounds such as disaccharides and free amino acids. The mentioned composition proved to increase the growth rate of plants in which it was applied; however, the increase in growth rate is hardly significant, since the percentage of survival of plants is very low, being less than 50%. Therefore, the use of the composition described in this document would not guarantee the total recovery of a crop subjected to stress caused by biotic or abiotic agents. Patent application MX/a/2017/005207 describes an antifungal composition of Larrea tridentata with Aloe vera. This composition proved to be effective in controlling various phytopathogenic fungi, and it was shown that tomato plants to which the composition was applied presented a better appearance. However, the composition described has not been shown to repair damage caused by biotic or abiotic stress agents, nor to promote plant growth, so it is necessary to use other types of products to provide nutrients to the crops that guarantee their correct development. None of the aforementioned developments allows the regeneration of damaged plant tissue caused by biotic or abiotic stress agents, to a sufficient degree to allow the long-term survival of the affected plants. In addition, even after biotic or abiotic stress agents have been controlled, there is a considerable decrease in crop yield. Therefore, none of the available products is capable of protecting against damage and at the same time promoting plant growth to promote regeneration of damaged tissues, so that plants, if they survive the infection, present extensive regions of altered tissues that limit its correct development, which in many cases leads to the impossibility of producing the cultivable structures of the plant. In view of the above problems, there is a need to provide a protective and regenerative composition for plant tissues damaged by biotic or abiotic stress agents, which can be used on commercial crops in order to repair serious damage to aerial parts caused by said agents of biotic and abiotic stress. Likewise, there is a need to provide a protective composition, which also serves as a plant growth stimulant and promoter of regeneration of damaged plant tissues, so that the affected plants can recover from serious damage, without there a significant decrease in crop production. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION To overcome the limitations of available protective and plant growth-stimulating compositions, the present invention aims to provide a protective composition against plant damage, and repair and