A methodical approach to using biostimulants is helping a major agronomy company choosing the right products when it comes to sugar beet.
Agrii says trialling biostimulants before recommending them to clients is key to understanding their impact and when they should be used, says Don Pendergrast, the company’s technical manager for non-combinable crops.
Avoiding stress
“Our trials also show that some work really well as primers, but less well if the stress is already happening when you apply them. It’s a bit like the difference between preventative and curative fungicides.”
An example of the type of trials Agrii uses to test biostimulants is a six-month glasshouse trial comparing products effects and impact of timing on crops suffering from either long-term drought stress or acute periods of extreme drought.
“For example, we applied products to sugar beet just before stress symptoms were visible, and then again when the crop was stressed, and saw some products worked in one scenario but not the other.”
For nitrogen fixation products, trials usually compare addition to full rates of fertiliser or a reduced rate which will create stress within the crop. In these trials it is important to compare like with like, says Mr Pendergrast.
Comparisons
Growers should avoid comparing a product that’s used in-furrow to increase potato tuber numbers or improve establishment with a product used later that’s supposed to increase bulking rates, says Mr Pendergras.
Once products of interest have been identified, they all typically also subjected to field trial testing. That was the case in sugar beet with products that could potentially increase root yield and sugar content.
Two products were tested against an untreated control: Rovensa Next’s Biimore and Corteva’s BlueN, says Mr Pendergrast. Both had a positive benefit on yield and sugar content, he adds.
BlueN from a single application at the six-leaf stage added 5t/ha to root yield and 1.4% to sugar content. But two 50ml/ha applications of Biimore mixed with post-emergence herbicides adding 18.2t/ha to root yield and 2.3% in sugar content. These were statistically significant increases,” says Mr Pendergrast.
Results
Combined that increased adjusted sugar yield by nearly 40%. “Off the back of these results, a number of our agronomists advised the use of Biimore in last year’s beet crops and have also seen some nice lifts in yield.”
Biimore is made from the bacterial fermentation of sugar case molasses by a strain of Corynebacterium glutamicum. It is rich in primary and secondary compounds that act as a natural biostimulant, says Rovensa Next UK manager Bruce Morton.
Pathways
These compounds help to control various genetic pathways in the plant, he says, including enhancing photosynthetic efficiency, sugar synthesis, potassium translocation, and improved cell wall construction.
The Agrii trials results have been replicated across Europe, with consistent yield increases of 5-7% in France, Belgium and the UK.