Plant Health Insights

Congratulations to Josephine Fouache, the winner of an iPad Mini for attending our 2016 horticulture webinar, "Building the Best Foundation for Hort Crops." Josephine’s name was drawn from a long list of webinar attendees, and we were very pleased to present her with a prize.

Josephine is the technical manager for Montague, which operate four apple orchards and one stone fruit orchard in New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria. Her role at Montague includes researching new products and varieties for use in Montague’s orchards. She is pictured here with Aaron Oesch, Technical Sales Manager of Agricen Australia.

Foundation LM is an innovative fertiliser biocatalyst that can be used within a grower's existing fertility program across a wide variety of crops—including horticultural crops—to increase nutrient availability and improve plant performance. It is specifically formulated for use with liquid applications, including in-furrow and injection applications with liquid fertilisers, herbicides and fungicides.

Learn how Foundation LM benefits horticulture crop programs by downloading our booklet, "Foundation LM: Horticulture Crops." 

In the heart of the Granite Belt, Nutrien Ag Solutions agronomist Michael Bednarz has been recommending Foundation LM in the horticulture market for the past few years because of the consistently strong results he has seen, both in his first-hand trialling and in the results of the growers he consults with. 

This season, Michael designed a two-block trial of Foundation LM for a strawberry grower, confident the grower would see a great return on his investment.

The first block consisted of the grower's standard fertility practice plus 10 L/ha of Foundation LM applied through fertigation. In the second block, the same treatment was applied along with a subsequent 10 L/ha application of Foundation LM through fertigation three months after the initial treatment. Both blocks were compared to the grower's standard practice alone. 

As the growing season progressed, Michael and the grower noted increased plant coverage in the raised beds treated with Foundation LM, as well as an increase in berry uniformity.  

In this trial conducted by the Nutrien Ag Solutions Gatton branch, an application of Foundation LM (10 L/ha in furrow at planting) increased carrot growth and uptake of key nutrients in carrot tissue.

In the left photo below, denser leaf growth and a more orange tone was observed in the treated versus untreated carrots. In the photo on the right, which was taken three weeks prior to harvest, carrots in the Foundation LM-treated block were significantly larger than those from the untreated block.

To evaluate the effects of the fertiliser biocatalyst Foundation LM on seed potato yield, this potato trial in Yarloop, Western Australia, compared three fertility treatments in Atlantic variety seed potatoes:

1. Farmer's standard fertility practice alone
2. Farmer's standard practice + 10 L/ha Foundation LM in furrow
3. Farmer's standard practice + 10 L/ha Foundation LM in furrow + 10 L/ha Foundation LM foliar at hooking

 Planting seed potatoes for the crop demonstration. 

Nutrien Ag Solutions agronomist Adam Chapman first learned the results of this particular Foundation LM processing potato trial when grower Peter Bendotti called him to inquire, “What in the world did you apply to these spuds?!”

Peter, who farms in Pemberton, Western Australia, was impressed. Where Foundation LM had been used, his Atlantic and Mac Russet potato varieties were coming back with more uniformity, fewer culls and more tonnage—putting more money per hectare into his pocket compared to spuds grown with just his usual fertiliser program.

You can hear Peter talk about his experience with Foundation LM in this video:

Recent trials from New South Wales show that adding a fertiliser biocatalyst to a cotton fertility program increases cotton yields and brings in exceptional return on investment (ROI) for a grower. 

In a trial conducted in Rowena, the grower's standard fertility program was compared to the grower's standard with Foundation LM (applied at 5 L/Ha in the furrow at planting). Rows were planted in a solid configuration and the crop was fully irrigated. Despite little difference in development between the control and Foundation-treated crops throughout the season, the addition of Foundation increased yields by 0.64 bales per hectare (equivalent to a revenue increase of +$320/Ha) when the cotton was ginned.

Pulse crop growers know that phosphorus mineralization is key for optimum crop performance. By using Foundation LM, they can increase the availability of phosphorus in the soil to build the best foundation for their crop. 

Rhizobia use phosphorus to fix atmospheric nitrogen as ammonium nitrate (NH₄). If phosphorus is being tied up or not being cycled as fast as the rhizobia need it, they can't work at an optimum level and they won't have the nodulation they should have.