More bang for N buck

The Land, New South Wales, Australia 

September 4, 2008 

AS PRODUCERS plan their crop nutrition against a background of spiraling fertiliser costs, a series of new products are promising more “bang for buck” by either manufacturing nutrients, or improving their plant uptake. 

The latest products to hit the market are Carbon Boost-S and Kafe-F, which their distributors claim offer growers a new way to increase yields without ramping up fertilizer rates. 

Both are nutrient enhancement products designed to increase the uptake of applied and existing nutrients. 

Carbon Boost-S is formulated for use with soil-applied nutrients and fertilisers in order to help avoid tie-ups in the soil. 

Kafe-F is used for foliar applications, being developed to help nutrients break through leaf barriers. 

Developed by a US bioscience company, FBS, Carbon Boost-S and Kafe-F use CarbonPower technology, described as a “a next-generation delivery system that provides superior nutrient uptake and mobility throughout the plant”. 

To create CarbonPower, FBS says it isolated and refined naturally occurring organic compounds that provide a high level of mobility to nutrients within the plant. 

Five years of studies with CarbonPower NPK enhancement products had consistently shown yield increases over growers’ standard fertiliser programs, and also had the potential to improve crop health and natural resistance to environmental stresses, the company says. 

In NSW and Queensland CarbonPower products are distributed by Pursehouse Rural and other IHD members. 

Pursehouse Rural director, Rod Roseby, said the company talked to growers who had used CarbonPower in the US before deciding to try it themselves. 

Pursehouse also was conducting trials to test the products. 

“We received extremely positive reports from growers in California,” Mr Roseby said. 

“Based on those reports, we thought the CarbonPower technology was something that could prove to be a valuable asset to our growers.” 

Another relatively recent market entrant is TwinN (pictured), a nitrogen-fixing microbial product which can be liquid-injected at planting, or applied as a foliar spray. 

The Queensland manufacturer, Mapleton Agri Biotech, claims the non-host-specific nitrogen fixing microbes can significantly increase yield while reducing the nitrogen bill. 

The company said on-farm and replicated trials were underway in Australia to quantify this, and similar trials in African countries, in both winter and summer crops, as well as a wide range of horticultural crops, had provided impressive results. 

Yield mapping results from Kenya showed TwinN-treated wheat yielded an extra 2.7 tonnes a hectare on usual basal nitrogen fertiliser application, showing how nitrogen fixing microbes could respond to plant requirements to help maximize yield potential. 

■ Contact Adrian Nelson, Pursehouse Rural, (0428) 400 202; Ian Leonard, FBS Australia, (0419) 757 863, or for Twin-N Guy Webb, Gaia Consultancy, (0422) 806 325.