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Growth B & B, Liquid Blood and Bone

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Sep 07 Liquid Blood and Bone a real hit at Garden Expo's around the country Click here

April 07- Large Plot trial to replace conventional forms of "N" in Cotton a success, for more details click here.

LARGE PLOT DEMONSTRATION TRIAL

 AS A PARTIAL OR FULL REPLACEMENT TO TRADITIONAL NITROGEN FORMS

INTRODUCTION:

Unfortunately for the cotton industry and for farming in general, traditional forms of “N” seem to have become a necessary evil. Urea, NH3 and various forms of nitrogen/phosphate/potassium blends are commonly used because of their high concentration of “N”. The effect of these “traditional” fertilizers on the soil and soil biology can be detrimental, and costly to reverse. This deterioration of the soil is often masked by applying higher rates of “N” – A real catch 22 situation. A large percentage of the product that is applied to the soil is lost into the environment due to leaching and volatilisation.

For every Kg of Nitrogen applied to the soil, 3.6 kg of lime is needed to reverse the acidifying effects. Nitrogen based fertilizers can destroy the humus in the top soil which helps to release naturally available nutrients. Additionally, traditional forms of N are produced using non renewable resources whereas GROWTH B&B is based largely on organic based Blood and Bone thus leaving a far smaller footprint on the environment.

Traditional nitrogenous based fertilizers are directly linked to oil production with a resultant increase in the cost of buying the product and also an increase in applying it.

GROWTH AGRICULTURE are constantly looking at ways to improve the economic and ecological viability of Australia’s rural producers. GROWTH B&B (Organic based Liquid Blood and Bone) was sent to the Soil Food Web to test its effectiveness when used as a component of compost tea. The results showed that when applied to the soil, B&B enhanced beneficial Fungi and Bacterial populations, which help release naturally available Nitrogen other soil born nutrients making them readily available to the plant.

With these results and other successes in various horticultural crops GROWTH AGRICULTURE decided to investigate if it were possible to grow a crop of cotton using a reduced rate of Urea (50% of the growers normal rate) or indeed using no traditional forms of “N” at all.

Four plots (each 84 rows by 500mt) were chosen in field 23 at Kerribee at Merah North near Wee Waa NSW. This plot size was chosen to allow for a full module to be picked from each plot. The choice of the field was made because of the close location to a bore water source, in case water became short. The field was newly developed resulting in a lot of cut and fill areas leading to “low” spots and some “bare” areas which were the direct result of land levelling. During Harvest, 40 rows were picked out of the middle of each treatment.

Aerial Bio-Mass maps were taken to identify the “low cut” and “bare” areas of the field. It was expected that these areas of the field will have a negative impact on yield. Despite the worst of these “cut areas” being in the treatment that only had B&B applied to it, this treatment still yielded well above the field and district average.

In order to present an unbiased monitoring of the trial we engaged the services of Geoff Brown (Geoff Brown Consulting Pty Ltd) and Dr Ian Rochester from the Myall Vale research centre to overview the trial and to assist in its evaluation. Their comments are included as addendum’s to this report.

THE FULL REPORT INCLUDING METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD. PLEASE CONTACT US AND WE SHALL BE HAPPY TO FORWARD YOU DETAILS