viewpoint

August 2014

with John Barnes – Managing Director

At Fertilizer New Zealand we spend an inordinate amount of time and money explaining to our potential clients that we provide products that are far more sympathetic to the aims and objectives of modern farming systems.

So how did we get to this point where the only advice farmers seem to get is to throw on more super and nitrogen?

To start this story we need to go back 160 years, to the 1850’s. Back then, farmers used animal manure and blood and bone for their fertilisers. All this started to change when a chemist discovered by accident that the chemicals he put out on the grass grew better than the other areas. This led to the formation of the "Chemical Trust" who then sought to further the sales of chemical fertilisers.

During the same time there was a Miller by the name of Julius Hensel. I will quote from the book "Bread from Stones", translated from German in 1894.
 

Hensel made his discovery of powdered rock fertilization. One day, while milling grain, he noticed that some stones were mixed with it and ground into the meal. He sprinkled this stone over the soil of his garden and was surprised to note how the vegetables took on a new, more vigorous growth. This led him to repeat the experiment by grinding more stones and applying the stone meal to fruit trees.

Much to his surprise, apple trees that formerly bore wormy, imperfect fruit now produced fine quality fruit free from worms. Also vegetables fertilized by stone meal were free from insect pests and diseases.

It seemed to be a complete plant food which produced fine vegetables even in the poorest soil.

Encouraged by these results, Hensel put his "Stone Meal" on the market, and wrote extensively on its superiority over chemical fertilizers, while at the same time opposing the use of animal manure, and the nitrogen theory on which it is based, claiming that when plants are supplied with Stone Meal, plenty of water, air and sunshine, they will grow health-fully even if the soil is poor in nitrogen, since it was his belief that plants derive their nitrogen through their leaves, and do not depend on the soil for this element. 

In opposing this use of chemical fertilizer, Hensel awoke the ire of a powerful enemy, which was resolved to liquidate him—the Chemical Trust. Through unfair competition, Hensel's "Stone Meal" business was destroyed and his product was taken off the market.

While unlike Hensel I am not opposed to the use of Chemical Fertilisers, I am surprised at the level that some use and misuse chemicals.

It is reported that the first chemical fertilisers were produced in New Zealand in the late 1890’s. Their use turned our land into highly productive farms which were and still are an example to the rest of the World. New Zealand made use of material which came from Nauru, and was encouraged and subsidised by the Government.

Back in the days of fertiliser subsidies the only message was to get it on cheap and get it on in places where it had not been used before… for example hill country and undeveloped land. Those were exciting times when the answers were simple and the pioneering spirit was in all of us. Swamps were drained, scrub was cleared and trees were bowled over in favour of green pasture for sheep, beef and dairy cows. We just got on with the job.

Now in hindsight we also know that we piled on too many sheep and we bowled over too many trees on country that was really too steep and too sensitive to erosion. It would be fair to say that we used methods that were far less sophisticated than those required today. All of that was okay back then but it is definitely not okay now.

There have always been the free thinkers who believe that there is always another way to fertilise soils, but these people and companies have disappeared without trace for a variety of reasons.

Only relatively recently have we learned that we also created a longer lasting and far more sinister problem which is that of leaching nutrients and contaminates into our waterways and lakes. This has thrown up a whole new set of problems which are much harder to fix. Problems that I could see on the horizon many years ago and that is why we moved to selling the range of products we now have.

We now supply more sophisticated products that are applied at different times and at different rates according to weather, soil types and many other factors. Our field representatives are required to know what is best for a particular situation and will advise on liquid fertiliser, solid fertiliser, trace elements and yes… even nitrogen at times. But what we will not be doing is advising a blanket "one size fits all" type solution.

Having said all of that, the question is, why are farmers still pushed to accept products that have now been proven to harm the environment on a grand scale? And even more to the point, why do our scientific institutions condone such actions? My views will remain private. Suffice it to say we at Fertilizer New Zealand are intent on a far more responsible approach and one that delivers where it counts… healthy pastures, healthy stock and money in the bank!

Since rebranding Actavize we have had a renewed interest in this product. Last week we had a call from a farmer who was telling us just how good it worked for him. It is always good to take these calls as we believe it is the best on the market.

The developer of the original product was a brilliant scientist who was well ahead of his time; he understood both soil and animal health science. Armed with this information he put together a suspension fertiliser that to this day has not been matched.

Back then he included within the fertiliser, N P K, trace elements and various other ingredients which included both Tricontanal and Gibberellic Acid. These two elements are growth promotants which stimulate growth and cell strength to provide a plant that not only grows well but also has good cell density.

While Actavize comes in a container it is not a true liquid, but what is technically known as a colloidal suspension (fine particle in suspension). Using this technique the developer managed to add far more to the mix than is possible by just having a saturated solution like the other liquid fertilisers available.

The present owner John Barnes, Managing Director of Fertilizer New Zealand, bought the business from Pam Calvesbert nearly five years ago and has relocated the manufacturing plant to Nelson where the parent company is based. Between Pam and John there is collectively over 60 years of plant nutrient experience invested in this product. In 1974 Pam imported the first colloidal suspension fertiliser into New Zealand. Since then she has been involved in this type of product up to the present time. That is 40 years of experience which is invaluable to the farming community.
   
While independent funding has been sought for scientific trials none has been made available. But some anecdotal work was carried out by our own in house scientist Dr Jim Bruce Smith who had a lifelong passion for this type of work. Through this time with Dr Jim we were able to provide some results for farmers which showed that by changing the nutrient status of the pasture the animals responded quickly and improved in health which resulted in better production.

We are proud to be able to show that on pastures where Actavize has been applied lambs will grow faster and yield better. In the case of dairy farms we have been able to achieve significantly reduced metabolic problems which in turn aids production overall. In cases where we monitored the cows, we corrected metabolic ailments within two days. These combined factors lead to better profits for farmers and satisfied customers for us.

Recently I asked about the statement "Yield is limited by the plant nutrient present in the smallest quantity, relative to crop requirements". This statement comes from Carl Sprengel (1828) and later made popular by Justus von Liebig.

The concept is applied to a plant or crop growth, where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not increase plant growth. Only by increasing the amount of the limiting nutrient (the one scarcest in relation to "NEED") was the growth of a plant or crop improved. This principle can be summed up like this. “The availability of the most abundant nutrient in the soil is only as good as the availability of the least abundant nutrient in the soil”.  Or putting it another way "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link".