David Jiménez-Arias

• PhD in Plant Science
• Investigador at Instituto Canario de Investigaciones Agrarias

Artemisinin is a sesquiterpene lactone endoperoxide, recognized for its application as a treatment for malaria. Besides, it has activity against several types of cancers, as well as anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. The chemical synthesis of artemisinin is quite complex and economically unfeasible. Hence, artemisinin is typically obtaine...

The commercial production of artemisinin and other valuable bioactive natural products depends on their plant sources, which may provide variable amounts of the compound depending on plant variety, the period of the year, abiotic stress and other factors. Therefore, it requires a method for large-scale, low-cost natural product quantification. The...

Water scarcity is a serious constraint for agriculture, and global warming and climate change can exacerbate it in many areas. Therefore, sustainable approaches must be implemented to deal with current and future water scarcity scenarios. Genetic and chemical approaches are being applied to manage this limitation and maintain crop yields. In partic...

Water deficit represents a serious limitation for agriculture and both genetic and chemical approaches are being used to cope with this stress and maintain plant yield. Next-generation agrochemicals that control stomatal aperture are promising for controlling water use efficiency. For example, chemical control of abscisic acid (ABA) signaling throu...

Introduction Artemisinin is a secondary metabolite well-known for its use in the treatment of malaria. It also displays other antimicrobial activities which further increase its interest. At present, Artemisia annua is the sole commercial source of the substance, and its production is limited, leading to a global deficit in supply. Furthermore, the...

Biostimulants are an interesting strategy to increase crop tolerance to water deficits, and there is an extensive bibliography on them. However, most of them need to be treated continuously to increase protection throughout the growth cycle. In this context, we chose menadione sodium bisulfite, whose protective effect against water deficit has been...

Encapsulation in agriculture today is practically focused on agrochemicals such as pesticides , herbicides, fungicides, or fertilizers to enhance the protective or nutritive aspects of the entrapped active ingredients. However, one of the most promising and environmentally friendly technologies, biostimulants, is hardly explored in this field. Enca...

Biostimulants have become an asset for agriculture since they are a greener alternative to traditionally used plant protection products. Also, they have gained the farmers’ acceptance due to their effect on enhancing the plant’s natural defense system against abiotic stresses. Besides commercially available complex products, small molecule-based bi...

Persea americana (avocado) represents one of the most demanded food products worldwide, with an important impact in several agronomy-based economies. The avocado is one of the most salt-sensitive and valuable crops. It is therefore necessary to use salt-tolerant varieties, such as the West Indian, for cultivation in locations with soil salinity pro...

Among its other effects, climate change is driving humanity into water scarcity, especially in highly populated areas such as the Mediterranean. One of the best options to solve this problem is seawater desalination, but it has its environmental, social and economic impacts. The brine reject effluent from the process can be used as a rich mineral s...

Biostimulants can be used in many crops growing under water deficit conditions at the seedling stage. This study used tomato, Solanum lycopersicum L., seedlings growing in commercial 150-cell trays as an experimental setup to reproduce mild drought stress effects. The method showed significant reductions in seedling growth and RGR (25%) after a sev...

Climate change has increased the severity of drought episodes by further reducing precipitation in vulnerable zones. Drought induces a substantial decrease in agricultural water, reducing crop yields. Consequently, addressing water consumption can increase farmers’ profits. This work describes lab-to-field research in Zea mays, using two biostimula...

BACKGROUND Botrytis cinerea, the causal agent of gray mold has a great economic impact on several important crops. This necrotrophic fungus causes disease symptoms during vegetative growth and also into postharvest stages. The current method to combat this disease is fungicide application, with high economic costs and environmentally unsustainable...

Banana cultivars of agronomic interest have been genetically characterized using two different molecular markers. On the one hand, a panel of 14 trinucleotide single sequence repeats (SSRs or microsatellites) was optimized for homogeneous PCR conditions. It was tested with 50 individuals from seven cultivars, yielding 76 alleles and 5.4 ± 1.8 allel...

Water is indispensable for the life of any organism on Earth. Consequently, osmotic stress due to salinity and drought is the greatest threat to crop productivity. Ongoing climate change includes rising temperatures and less precipitation over large areas of the planet. This is leading to increased vulnerability to the drought conditions that habit...

Biostimulants (BSs) are probably one of the most promising alternatives nowadays to cope with yield losses caused by plant stress, which are intensified by climate change. Biostimulants comprise many different compounds with positive effects on plants, excluding pesticides and chemical fertilisers. Usually mixtures such as lixiviates from proteins...

For >50 years the Canary Islands have been using seawater desalinization facilities in order to satisfy the freshwater demand of their main economic activity –tourism, which continues to contribute to the economic and social progress of the archipelago. However, this desalinization process involves the production of a “waste” product known as rejec...

Water scarcity is one of the main challenges faced by modern agriculture, leading to a substantial drop in crop productivity and a threat to food security. Thus, novel agricultural approaches are necessary and urgent to face this problem. Some natural compounds such as amino acids have been shown to increase yield and mitigate the effects of drough...

Salinity and drought are considered significant abiotic plant stressors with major impact on plant development that causes serious agricultural yield losses. Amongst the strategies to face this problem, the use of compounds capable of inducing abiotic stress tolerance is still little explored. Menadione sodium bisulphite (MSB), a water-soluble vita...

Vitamins, since their discovery, have triggered researchers' interest mainly because of their role in human health. They are essential in cell redox reactions and also as enzyme cofactors both in animal and plant kingdoms. Over the recent years their metabolic biosynthetic pathways have been elucidated showing the important role of plant organelles...

Prod 2018-234 BAP GEAPSI INRA

Crop plants are repeatedly exposed to biotic and abiotic stresses that in extreme circumstances can lead to substantial yield losses. The stress pressure is likely to intensify in the near future due to anthropogenic factors and climate change, exacerbating their detrimental effects on crop yield and thereby threatening food security. Many plants a...

La presente invención propone al uso de aminoácidos cíclicos no prolínicos que tienen el significado descrito en la descripción, para aumentar la tolerancia de plantas a condiciones de estrés osmótico, que tienen su origen en la falta de disponibilidad de agua del medio. Los aminoácidos no prolínicos que se usan en la invención son de origen natura...

Plants are able to develop numerous defence strategies to face stress. Amongst these, higher plants are capable of demonstrating stress imprint, a mechanism related with the phenomenon of priming. This is usually defined as genetic or biochemical modifications induced by a first stress exposure that leads to enhanced resistance to a later stress. M...

Plants are able to develop numerous defence strategies to face stress. Amongst these, higher plants are capable of demonstrating stress imprint, a mechanism related with the phenomenon of priming. This is usually defined as genetic or biochemical modifications induced by a first stress exposure that leads to enhanced resistance to a later stress. M...

Snails and slugs are terrestrial gastropods that represent an important biotic stress that adversely affects crop yields. These pests are typically controlled with molluscicides that produce pollution and toxicity and further induce the evolution of resistance mechanisms, making pest management even more challenging. In our work, we have assessed t...

Biotic and abiotic stresses are the main problems affecting agricultural losses. Consequently, understanding the mechanisms underlying plant resistance or tolerance helps us to develop fruitful new agricultural strategies. These will allow us to face the challenges of producing food for a growing human population in a sustainable and environmentall...

Menadione sodium bisulphite (MSB) is a water-soluble derivative of vitamin K3, or menadione, and has been previously demonstrated to function as a plant defence activator against several pathogens in several plant species. However, there are no reports of the role of this vitamin in the induction of resistance in the plant model Arabidopsis thalian...