Introduction

This document was prepared by the experts of CEN/TC 455 “Plant Biostimulants”. The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) was requested by the European Commission (EC) to draft European standards or European standardization deliverables to support the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2019 laying down rules on the making available on the market of EU fertilising products (“FPR” or “Fertilising Products Regulation”). This standardization request, presented as M/564, also contributes to the Communication on “Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bio economy for Europe”. Working Group 5 “Labelling and denominations”, was created to develop a work program as part of this standardization request.

Technical Committee CEN/TC 455 “Plant Biostimulants” was established to carry out the work program that will prepare a series of standards. The interest in biostimulants has increased significantly in Europe as a valuable tool to use in agriculture. Standardization was identified as having an important role in order to promote the use of biostimulants. The work of CEN/TC 455 seeks to improve the reliability of the supply chain, thereby improving the confidence of farmers, industry, and consumers in biostimulants, and will promote and support commercialization of the European biostimulant industry.

To improve the market of EU Plant Biostimulants products, they should be labelled in accordance with the labelling requirements set out in Annex III of Regulation 2019/1009 [5], which prescribes that the phrase “poor in chloride” or similar may only be used if the chloride (Cl⁻) content is below 30 g/kg of dry matter.

This means that the manufacturer has the possibility to note on the label that the plant biostimulant is “poor in chloride”, only if the manufacturer has done the analysis and the chloride content is well below 30 g/kg of dry matter.

The trend of the last few years is to reduce the use of harmful chemicals both for operators and the environment, favouring the use of the most advanced technologies that have a lower impact; therefore, the potentiometric is preferable to other techniques.

Furthermore, the potentiometric method is not influenced by interferences due to colour or turbidity of the sample solution.

PD CEN/TS 17723:2022

Plant biostimulants. Determination of chloride

Published:

30 Jun 2022

Withdrawn:

29 Nov 2024

1 Scope