Healthy and organic harvest

September marks a new start to the season in Almería. This issue, with its main focus on late-season cucumbers, emphasizes the importance of improving the plant's defense system, as our crops don't always develop under optimal and ideal conditions.

Crop development can be affected by biotic factors (action of living beings) or abiotic factors (action of physical and chemical factors such as drought, heat, cold, nutritional deficiencies or phytotoxicities, etc.).

Faced with external stressors, plants develop resistance mechanisms that help them combat these factors, avoid them, and continue their development, although sometimes they do affect them negatively. To reduce the damage caused by external agents, increase crop resistance to stress, and aid in their recovery, there are the biostimulants SPIRALIS Long Life and SPIRALIS ECO Long Life , the result of Cultifort's innovative R&D line: Natural Defensive Biotechnology.

This fertilizer, in its conventional and organic forms, acts primarily in a preventative and regenerative manner. It induces and enhances a local and systemic endogenous increase in molecules with a high defensive capacity, i.e., it produces a bioprotective effect against external stress factors. The synthesized endogenous defensive molecules induce structural changes in plant cell walls at the level of their lignification, constituting a physical barrier against various stress factors.

In addition to improving the plant's defensive capacity, SPIRALIS Long Life and SPIRALIS ECO Long Life significantly improve post-harvest life by protecting the fruit against rot, degradation, or other alterations.

The latest generation formulation with molecules highly compatible with plant tissues allows for its total and immediate absorption (between 1 and 8 hours) in the synthesis pathway of high-defensive capacity molecules and the protection can last for several weeks. Its use is recommended every 10-15 days from the start of cultivation for best results.

In trials carried out in Almería during the 2017-2018 season, with weekly applications of SPIRALIS Long Life / SPIRALIS ECO Long Life (T1 at a dose of 300 cc/hl and T2 at a dose of 500 cc/hl) from the beginning of cultivation in Dutch cucumber (variety SV091), increases in the size and weight of the fruits have been achieved, specifically 18,6% on the thickness of the cucumbers and 26,8% on their weight.

Given that in the 2017-2018 season, the average cucumber production in Almería was 8,7 kg/m2 ⁽ Source: Yearbook of Agricultural Statistics 2018. Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development. Regional Government of Andalusia) and that the average price at origin was €0,55/kg (Source: Price and Market Observatory. Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development. Regional Government of Andalusia), the use of SPIRALIS Long Life / SPIRALIS ECO Long Life resulted in an increase of 2,3 kg/m2 ^and €1,3/m2 ⁱⁿ productive and economic terms, respectively.

 

Source: FHAlmería