By Dr. Thomas T. Yamashita

High performance farming requires sound and efficient irrigation and mineral nutrition. Yet, conventional plant nutrition science rarely goes beyond estimating quantities per acre of a particular element. The efficacious administering of sound plant nutrition, however, is both an art and a science, with many intricacies to consider.

Below is a brief introduction to salient plant nutrition considerations.

The Ultimate Goal of Plant Nutrition

Conventional monitoring of plant nutritional requirements is often limited to tissue mineral analyses (TMA). Excesses and deficiencies are observed, and the grower responds by reducing or increasing the quantities of applied minerals.

However, TMA assumes that the plant is not in a dynamic flux of growth and development, with the amounts of critical minerals fluctuating over time. As the healthy plant expands in volume, minerals within the system become temporarily diluted. Responding to a temporary deficit—or excess—of a mineral may result in overcorrection. In fact, our testing has shown, more often than not, that supposedly superior TMA-based treatments are associated with inferior growth and development.

Coordination of the TMA with soil mineral analyses (SMA) can help define the true scenario. If the TMA, for example, shows deficiencies of zinc and manganese, while the SMA demonstrates excess soil levels of the same elements, the conventional TMA-based response of adding more will likely not solve the issue.

If a problem does exist in this example, then it is in the lower than desired release rate or enhanced tie-up capacity of the soil. Furthermore, what is far more important than any exact mineral level observed in the TMA is the efficiency of photosynthesis, which vary from field to field and from species to species. The most important goal here is that your plants operate at the highest efficiency possible. That is, plant mineral nutritional practices should not be merely resigned to reach some magical TMA level, per se, but be designed to maximize photosynthetic efficiency.

This optimization must take into consideration, at minimum:

1. Adjusting key soil and water chemical parameters (e.g. pH, electrical conductivity, HCO₃, etc.)
2. Building the mineral banks of your field soil
3. Balancing the mineral levels in the soil
4. Establishing and maintaining selective microbial activity of the soil
5. Periodically supplementing soil nutrition with effectively chelated minerals and specific, preformed carbon-energy precursors and photosynthates

Perfection of these parameters must take into consideration numerous variables and, ultimately, programs designed on a specific field-by-field basis.

Notes on Perfecting Soil Nutrition

Each field should be chemically and biologically characterized, preferably, prior to planting. Necessary adjustments should be instituted to produce the qualities inherent to virgin quality soil. Wherever possible, the irrigation system should be adjusted or selected to accommodate incrementation or spoon-feeding techniques. Highest fertilization efficiencies are secured when delivered through the irrigation water.

These are made even more efficient with field- and crop-specific blended fertilizers. With well-designed, blended fertilizers, one can achieve more exacting balances of minerals, and avoid skewed ratios that often occur with injections of single-line fertilizers.

Furthermore, use of blended fertilizers allows a grower to conserve on fertility, as both higher uptake efficiency and higher plant-use efficiency will occur. Additionally, use of well-designed blended fertilizers allows one to farm the plants, as opposed to farming the soil, as many soils would require monumental overhauling and several years’ time before chemical perfection would be achieved.

Lastly, blended fertilizers accommodate one of the most important factors in perfecting plant nutrition, frequent and periodic incrementation, as opposed to infrequent and grower-convenient slugging.

Notes on Perfecting Foliar Nutrition

The ultimate efficacy and contribution of a foliar nutrient is not judged by the TMA, but rather its ability to:

1. Prevent a decrease in photosynthetic efficiency
2. Increase photosynthetic efficiency in your crop plant, which produces a wave of positive occurrences, including:
   1. Increased tolerance and/or resistance to the elements, pests and diseases
   2. Mitigation of numerous physiological maladies (e.g. blossom-end rot, alternate bearing, flower abortion
   3. Increased yields and quality

Thus, a superior foliar must necessarily increase photosynthetic efficiency. Part of this equation must entail inclusion of specific carbon-energy precursors, catalysts, and a balanced array of various, naturally chelated minerals.

The chelation in Fusion 360 Integrity Minerals is nothing short of superior. The agents used for a specific mineral or set of minerals are natural chelating organic acids. The reaction process binds the most attractive organic acid with the subject element (e.g. zinc, manganese, iron, calcium, etc.). Concentrations of both element and chelating agent are adjusted to produce an approximately three-to-one, chelator-to-element ratio.

The goals of this process are to secure the element in a non-reactive, protective compound, and to allow additional chelators to react positively with potential, free-floating, nonchelated entities in the spray tank.

The organic acids used in chelating Integrity Minerals act to:

1. Minimize the interaction of the elements in the spray tank
2. Maximize the absorption through the plant tissues
3. Ensure that minerals are readily accepted by the plant as a natural, carbon-energy food source (e.g. EDTA chelates are not recognized by the plant as a carbon-energy source)
4. Allow for rehydration of minerals on tissues, extending additional opportunities for plant absorption

To learn more about how Fusion 360’s line of Integrity Minerals products can help improve your yields and overall plant quality, contact us today.