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By Bob Wanzel, Senior Editor
Quote1: The increased lateral branching,
number and size of the bolls (plant on right) demonstrate
the effectiveness of the Stoller
Crop Health Therapy product Sugar Mover. The photo was taken
last fall in Lubbock, TX, on the Steve Becton farm.
Quote2:
Nutra-Park's main lab facilities are in Madison,
WI. The company conducts basic discovery work for both
floral
and produce markets at this location.
Editor's note: Back
when this reporter was a young cub, my major contact with
day-to-day farming was John, a central
Illinois farmer who really knew his stuff. Twenty-five years
ago John would talk to me about his crop, what the major
challenges of the week were and how he was going to attack
them. I remember one Sunday, we always visited in the church
library during the Sunday school hour, he admitted that sometimes
after all of the fertilizer and crop protection products
(we called them chemicals back then) were in place, he would
go out into the field and talk to his crop. He was fairly
serious when he said,
There's something we just don't know about those beans, and
talkin' to them seems to help." The following story
about plant health and the new products to serve this emerging
concept might just be what John was talking about. — RJW
There's a new industry emerging in agriculture and it involves
the many complicated biochemical reactions occurring inside
a growing plant. The name crop health has been applied to
this new industry, and closely connected, if not synonymous
with it, is the practice of regulating plant growth to benefit
both health and yield. It's an industry that depends mostly
on the plant's own substances and biological activity. It
involves concepts that are very difficult for growers to
talk about early in the morning at a local diner over a cup
of coffee. It's not about killing weeds or improving plant
nutrition, it's about signaling the plant to act in a certain
way.
For the Midwestern ag professional who deals with mostly
row crops, this bio-derived industry has not created a very
large blip on the radar screens. The professionals working
with vegetables, fruits and nuts, as well as some higher
value row crops, have seen the results of this new technology
first
hand.
We've interviewed technical and marketing professionals
associated with three of the leading plant health and growth
regulator
firms. Even though the products their companies produce fall
under an umbrella category of crop health, the modes of action
are quite variable, as are targeted crops and marketing strategies.
STOLLER MAXIMIZES GENETIC EXPRESSION
"This technology is neither fertilizer nor pesticide," says
Neil Stapensea, director of business development for the
Stoller Group, Houston, TX. "Crop health therapy fits
more with seed and biotechnology in terms of extracting
and realizing the genetic potential of plants."
The
Stoller Group began as a small micronutrient company 30
years ago and is now marketing its crop health products
worldwide. "Crop health therapy," says Stapensea, "is
based on the use of naturally occurring growth factors
applied to the plant to maximize its genetic expression.
Plant stress,
which is mostly created by unfavorable weather, results
in an imbalance between growth hormones (auxin, cytokinin
and
gibberillic acid) and stress hormones (ethylene and abscisc
acid). Products such as Root Feed, X-tra Power, BioForge,
Stimulate and Sugar Mover help maintain the appropriate
hormone balance throughout the growing season to make plants
more
resistant to stress, allowing the full expression of a
plant's genetic potential in terms of yield and quality."
Stoller
has pending patents on the use of plant hormones to enhance
physiological growth characteristics and for
insect and disease resistance. "Whether it's grain
weight, brix, soluble solids, lint quality, protein, oil
or absence
of physiological disorders, the quality characteristics
bred into plants are always more highly expressed with
Crop Health
Therapy, explains Stapensea.
Rudy Allen operates Ag Tech
Services, LLC. He is a private consultant from Mount Vernon,
WA. "You have to understand
that plants are hormonally balanced just as humans are,
and when they go out of balance the plant goes out of balance," he
says. Allen works with potato growers in the Skatit Valley
of Washington and studies plant stress, watching for critical
times when that plant requires an extra boost of a certain
hormone. "I know there are many times when I can supplement
a critical hormone and see a positive potato yield outcome," he
says.
"
We are working with progressive retailers and distributors
holding grower training sessions," says Stapensea. "Retailers
are able to differentiate themselves with value-added service
and production-enhancement technology that benefits both
themselves and their customers."
NUTRA-PARK PRODUCTS
IMPROVE QUALITY
Nutra-Park is perfecting uses for the biomolecule lysophosphatidylethanolamine
(LPE), a naturally occurring substance in the cell membranes
of every living organism. Research has demonstrated that
LPE affects the natural process of growth, maturation and
decay in living plant cells.
"
We've solved a lot of the big problems in terms of weed control
and pest management and we know how to fix most things
that might go wrong with the growing plant," says
Kim Nicholson, vice president Sales and Marketing for Nutra-Park. "So
our products do some of the fine tuning; they use the plant's
own resources to achieve higher quality."
According
to Nicholson the company markets six bio lipids with the
trademarked name Masterfresh Technology to the
agriculture and floral markets. "Originally research
was conducted to reduce the impact of early frost on Wisconsin's
cranberry
crop," she says. "Out of that research it was
discovered that LPE could enable ripening of the cranberry
plant."
The natural lipid was discovered to stimulate the plants
to achieve uniform ripening and at the same time slow decay,
allowing fruits and vegetables and cut flowers to stay
fresher and last longer.
"
LPE technology teaches us that ripening is not necessarily
aging," explains Nicholson. "When fruit is physiologically
mature, but not ripe, LPE promotes ripening by stimulating
the ethylene pathway to enable ripening. When fruit is
already ripe, LPE inhibits the production of an enzyme
called phospholipase.
This enzyme is known to break down cell membranes and cause
aging."
The Nutra-Park products, according to Nicholson,
are pharmaceutical grade and relatively expensive to manufacture. "We
often contact growers with large acreages and offer to
treat half,
measure the value we bring to the crop and split that extra
value with the grower," she says. This is basically
how we establish our product pricing. We charge by the
acre, not by the ounce."
The LPE technology is federally
registered by the EPA and approved for application in 48
states. Nutra-Park has several
strategic research partners including Valent BioSciences,
Syngenta Crop Protection, BASF Corporation and Seminis,
Inc.
EDEN BIOSCIENCE INTRODUCES HARPINS
The discovery of harpin was announced in Science in l992.
Harpin is a naturally occurring protein produced by diseases
when attacking plants, and plants have early warning receptors
that detect harpins. The first product developed from these
findings was Messenger. The harpin proteins and technology
developed by Eden Bioscience are marketed under the umbrella
brand of Harp-N-Tek.
This season, Eden is introducing the
next generation of harpin. The new harpin protein, according
to Dr. Ned French,
director
of Field Biology and Development for Eden, is very active
and provides similar or better performance than the first-generation
protein at 1/6 to 1/12 the rate of active ingredient. "The
new product is called ProAct, and it received unconditional
registration from the EPA this year," he says.
"After a droplet of ProAct lands on a leaf, harpins
bind to receptors on the leaf surface," explains French. "Once
it binds, the direct action of ProAct is over; everything
that happens afterwards is due to activity of the plant. "Receptors
respond to harpin by initiating an ‘inside-out plant
response' that turns on a plant's intrinsic growth and
stress-defense capabilities," French says, "and
this results in improved plant vigor, increased plant stamina,
and healthier
plants."
ProAct was originally designed to increase
yield in field crops. "We have seen considerable yield
increases in cotton and corn, and we are continuing to
research ProAct
in other field crops," says French. "In 11 replicated
trials in corn, leading independent experts documented
average yield increases of 8 to 10 bushels per acre with
ProAct.
We know that the root mass of treated corn plants tends
to increase when we use harpin, and we find higher levels
of
nutrients in plant tissue."
Last season, independent
cotton scientists and consultants conducted a broad range
of trials with ProAct. "ProAct
provided an average yield increase of 11 percent when applied
with glyphosate herbicide and 9 percent when applied after
glyphosate. In results from over 20 trials, plants treated
with ProAct consistently averaged more cotton bolls, heavier
bolls, and more lint," says French.
Eden has launched
a test program with the National Corn Growers Association.
The company will supply ProAct to
be applied
with the grower's post-emergence herbicide program. The
program will provide further information on ProAct performance
in
a variety of weed management systems, growing conditions
and tillage systems across the Corn Belt. "NCGA members
also qualify for a $1 per ounce discount on ProAct," says
French.
"Our past efforts in marketing Messenger have taught us to
describe what's happening in the plant with a short description
before people start to grow glassy eyed," he says. "We
know we are going to increase yields the vast majority
of the time. But some growers just don't seem to latch
on to
something that's applied to the crop to just increase yields.
Farm managers and growers who want a little extra yield
will be interested in ProAct." AP
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