Another important benefit that can be associated with the use of ZEI™, concerns agronomic defence.

The bunches of plants treated with ZEI™ have shown greater resistance to the attack of phytopathogens, especially fungi and oomycetes.
This phenomenon is due to the active ingredients found in ZEI™ that carry out direct action against the pathogens that cause damage to the vine and loss of production.
ZEI™’s natural extracts are all resistance inductors and generate an endogenous defence response of the plant.
The defence takes place through a mechanism called priming: the plant synthesizes faster and more effectively metabolites for its defence, such as phytoalexins or PRP, in case of a pathogen’s attack, preventing its development within the plant tissue.
Among ZEI™‘s natural extracts, there are chitooligosaccharides, completely biodegradable, biocompatible and non-toxic biopolymers deriving from the deacetylation of chitin, a constituent of the cell wall of fungi.
These compounds have a chemical structure similar to the cell wall of pathogenic fungi and when they come in contact with the leaf surface they stimulate plant defence, which produces phytoalexins, and jasmonic acid and activates the expression of defence-related genes.
Furthermore, these compounds have a positive charge, which interferes with the pathogen, having a negative charge, by altering its cellular permeability and preventing it from synthesizing mRNA.
Biophenols also exert an important antimicrobial activity as they interfere with the transport proteins of the cell membrane of the pathogens and interrupt their metabolic activities, leading to their death.
The extracts contained in ZEI™, therefore, exert an important direct antifungal action, and induce an acquired resistance in plants, being all-natural organic extracts, the environmental impact of the ZEI™ protocol is equal to zero.