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SQM and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile have signed a research collaboration agreement to investigate the agricultural importance of iodine as a plant nutrient.

The Plant System Biology Laboratory, headed by Dr. Rodrigo Gutierrez at the Faculty of Biological Sciences, seeks to understand how plants sense and respond to nutrients. Using combined cutting-edge systems biology and traditional molecular genetics strategies Dr. Gutiérrez’s group is dissecting the mechanisms of how nutrient signals interact with other signaling pathways to coordinate plant growth and development.

The trial performed during 2023, in collaboration with SQM, will evaluate the effect of a specific nutrient solution containing iodine on biomass, root growth and molecular responses in four important crop species: lettuce, tomato, cherry tree and strawberry. We will perform controlled experiments, together with in-depth characterization of iodine supply effect in crop species from the molecular to the organismal level. The results obtained in these trial and experiments should allow us to gain insights into the role of iodine on plant growth and development and crop yield.