CROPFIT

CropFit Services

CropFit Services is a Ghent University core facility providing plant bioassays to industrial and academic partners. Utilizing state-of-the-art infrastructure, CropFit Services supports every aspect of product development and helps elucidate biostimulants and biopesticides' mode of action. We support all scales of experiments, from in vitro through the greenhouse to large field trials.

Our offer

Plant Growth Promotion
  • Focus: Assessing a broad array of plant characteristics to investigate the validity of various biostimulation claims and fertiliser properties.
  • Assessment Tools: Advanced equipment like multispectral cameras and high-throughput phenotyping systems.
  • Trial Scope: Ranging from in vitro to greenhouse and field studies.
Insecticide and Acaricide activity
  • Focus: Validating the effectiveness and mode of action of (bio)pesticides against insects and mites.
  • Additional Services: Selectivity tests for biological control agents (BCA).
  • Target Species: Tests performed on a variety of agriculturally significant pests.
Fungicidal and Bactericidal activity
  • Focus: Validating the effectiveness and mode of action of (bio)pesticides against fungi, bacteria and oomycetes.
  • Collections: Pathogens from temperate, subtropical, and tropical climates.
  • Assessment tools: Utilising multispectral and hyperspectral cameras for efficiency tests on significant crops.
Nematicide activity and ISR
  • Focus: Assessing direct effects of bionematicides and induced systemic resistance (ISR).
  • Target Pests: Besides root-knot nematodes, ISR is tested in various insects, mites, and phytopathogens.
  • Crop Range: Covering various important broadacre and vegetable crops.

Biostimulant and Biopesticide MoA Testing

  • Tools: transcriptomics, bulk segregant analysis, GWAS, CRISPR.
  • Mutant panels available for insects, plants and bacteria. 
  • Selectivity and resistance risk testing.

Plant Biotechnology

  • Genome engineering.
  • Improved plant transformation and regeneration.
  • Translating genome-editing tech into a practical crop improvement pipeline.

Team

  • Professor Kris Audenaert- Scientific director

    (bio)fungicides, (bio)bactericides, phenotyping platform, multispectral cameras, biostimulants, (bio)fungicide mode of action, (bio)fungicide efficiency, high-throughput phenotyping, greenhouse trials

  • Professor Thomas Van Leeuwen

    spider mites, insects, insecticide mode of action, insecticide efficiency, ISR, insecticide selectivity, acaricide

  • Professor Tina Kyndt

    (bio)nematicides, ISR, nematicide efficiency, crop mutant collections

  • Professor Laurens Pauwels

    gene target identification, functional validation of plant traits, crop trait screening, and translating molecular insights to crop performance

  • Professor Monica Höfte

    (bio)fungicides, (bio)bactericides, fungal strain collection, (bio)fungicide efficiency

  • Professor Stefaan Werbrouck 

    biostimulants, phytotoxicity, plant micropropagation, plant regeneration 

  • Professor Inge Verstraeten

    root development and adaptation, plant hormones and signalling, rhizosphere nutrient conditions, sustainable crop production

  • Professor Steven Maenhout

    Shortening breeding cycles, screening and selection of elite lines, validation of new traits under controlled conditions, integration of genomics into breeding pipelines, and optimisation of breeding programs

Contact

Dr. Sabina Bajda-Wybouw
Core Facility Manager
CropFit.Services@ugent.be
T +32 479 96 22 74

Coupure links 653, Building A
9000 Gent, Belgium