One of the first things I learned on my soil health journey (and I have been on it for a while), is the way we traditionally deliver crop and pasture nutrition is damaging to the life in our soil. This in turn leads to poor soil health resulting in poor plant and animal health and ultimately poor human health.
In our attempt to simplify food production systems, we had oversimplified plant nutrition to a point that we were basically feeding our crops a diet of junk food, which of course has impacted the food we feed ourselves over the last few decades. Feeding our crops and pastures in this simplistic and unhealthy way has created symptoms like increased insect and disease issues, which then have to be treated with chemicals making our crops and pastures even sicker, which just moves along the food chain.
It is not all bad news however, as there are better ways to deliver plant nutrition, and one of those ways is through foliar applications. A well-designed foliar fertiliser application is one of the most powerful tools we have to improve plant health, allowing a plant to reach its full potential. Not only does good foliar nutrition improve plant health and yield, but it is also important for building soil health.
We all know photosynthesis is key to plant function and health. An unhealthy plant may only be photosynthesising at 10% to 20%, and will be flat out looking after itself, let alone be able to execute the tasks needed to maintain the critical relationship between itself and soil microbes. Healthy plants that are photosynthesising are feeding the soil biology in return for nutrients essential to healthy plants, which are more resilient to weather extremes and attacks from pests and diseases. Increasing photosynthesis to even 60% would allow the plant to feed the soil biology, put energy into its growth and health and as a by-product increase the life in the soil around it and help heal the earth.
Although I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle, I was able to start using foliar applications in crops with farmers, with some varied results. We got some amazing results, but also some disappointing ones, so why the variance? And how do we get consistently fantastic results? Enter stage two of my learning journey and is what I would like to share with you today, the key points to successful foliar nutrition.
- Water Source – clean water
- Balanced Nutrition
- Add Biology
- Timing of application
- Tank loading order
One of the first things you need to look at is your water source. I always knew water quality was important, but didn’t realise just how much until watching a webinar with John Kemph a few years ago. Poor water quality can affect the efficiency of foliar products by up to 70%, now that’s huge and all you need to do is make sure you have clean water. Tip for beginners, there is clean water and there is clean water. Optimally your water source should have a water hardness of less than 70ppm, but this is not that easy to find. For most of us rainwater is probably the best option, there is filtration and reverse osmosis technology which you could use, but not an option for most, so you just have to do the best you can with what you have.
The next thing I discovered (and when you think about it is common sense) is when we first started doing foliar nutrition we were just putting out liquid Nitrogen with a bit of water and all we were doing was the same dumbed-down fertility but just in a liquid form. After reading an article by Graeme Sait another piece of the puzzle came together. We needed to look at nutrition more holistically, as plants need a balance of all the Macro and Micro-nutrients. If any of these are too low or too high the chances are you are not going to get the response you are hoping for.
Another thing I took away from Graeme’s article was to apply biology when applying nutrition to optimise your results. Adding a plant and/or soil bio stimulant to your foliar mix helps improve results.
Two other things to take into account is time of application, preferably morning or evening out of the heat of the day, the leaf surface of the plant should not be above 26oC, and last but not least is the order of mixing, which should follow the order below.
- Majority of your water
- Nutrients (if not leaf testing use a broad spectrum NPK Trace fertiliser)
- Plant bio stimulants
- Microbial bio stimulants (I recommend TM Agriculture)
- Biological products (EM, LAB, Liquid Vermicast – I recommend Nutrisoil)
- Surfactant, sticker, wetter, or penetrant.
If you are using a good quality liquid vermicast like Nutrisoil, then you can probably remove number three as it is both a plant bio stimulant and biological product (one of the best you can get).
I hope this information helps you improve your foliar nutrition application, but it is important to remember this is only one tool in the toolbox. Your soil chemistry is still important and needs to be tended to when issues arise. Soil biology has never been more important, and the better the soil biology/life, the better everything else works, and a good foliar nutrition application is a step to achieving improved soil biology.
Below are a couple of webinars from John Kemph and Joel Williams which are worth watching.
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