Seipasa, the Spanish company specialising in the development and formulation of biopesticides, biostimulants and fertilizers for agriculture, has presented its Department of Microbiology facilities in l’Alcúdia (Valencia). These new premises adjoining the production plant, together with the Department of Botanical Extracts, take up a surface area of 150 m2. These facilities complete Seipasa’s laboratory and enable the company to advance in its in-house expertise and knowledge.
The building work has taken 6 months to complete and the new premises are equipped with all the latest cutting-edge technology. Dr. Inmaculada del Castillo, a specialist in the use of micro-organisms in sustainable agriculture, has joined the company as the new Departmental Head.
As Dr. de Castillo points out, “the new Department of Microbiology helps us to develop valuable in-house knowledge about the bacteria we use, to allow us to improve the quality and efficacy of our solutions and enable us to go one step further in exploring the efficacy of products and understanding how they perform in all the possible scenarios”.
New international situation
Francisco Espinosa, Seipasa’s Chief Research Officer, has highlighted the importance of the new Department of Microbiology in the context of the current situation of the new European Regulation on Fertilizers that has recently been approved and will be coming into force very soon. Espinosa states that “we are facing a new regulatory framework that includes products of microbial origin and clearly establishes a series of regulations for the use of micro-organisms in the development of biostimulant products”.
Seipasa’s Chief Research Officer goes on to explain that “we are talking about complex products where the key lies in building up our knowledge of each of the strains we work with. Developing a solid base and broadening our knowledge of products is essential in order to transfer all of this know-how to agriculture and apply it in actual field conditions.”
Dr. Inmaculada del Castillo has a BSc in Biology and a PhD in Microbiology and Genetics from the University of Seville. She joins Seipasa after 7 years as a researcher at the University of Nottingham and later as an expert in the biotechnology and biofertilizer development sector.