Technologies / Conservation agriculture

ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES BY AGROVIT:

Application of complex vitreous phosphate fertilizers in conservation agriculture

At present the concept and application of conservation agriculture has received much attention with respect to rational use of energy and other resources. Conservation agriculture implies the replacement of traditional intensive crop production technologies by conservation soil protecting ones.

Zero or minimal intrusion soil protection techniques become important and special methods of resource economy in agriculture. These methods comprise minimization or even elimination of the pre-seeding soil treatment, providing for soil protection, enegry and resource saving in the course of crop production.

The agricultural practices in different climatic and soil conditions showed that application of this technology in combination with rational application of fertilizing and pesticide systems yield enhancement in soil fertility in combination with high crop productivity.

It is important to stress that use of purely organic fertilizers leads to continuous degradation of soils and significant decrease in soil fertility. The reason is in the fact that crop production depletes the soil of essential microelements which cannot be replenished by application of organic fertilizers only.

The fertilizers used in conservation agriculture should possess the following essential properties:

Prolonged action for minimization of intrusion into the soil layers;
High assimilation by plants to avoid the eutrophication of the water basins by the washout;
Availability of microelements essential for plant vital activity;
Stimulating effect on soil microflora for enhancing natural soil fertility mechanisms;
Possibility of customization to specific soils, climates and plant cultures.

The new fertilizer AVA, produced and distributed by the AGROVIT company represents the fertilizer of a new class. It comprises a high-temperature fast tempered melt of different salts of the metaphosphoric acid, which is a principle source of basic nutrient elements for the plants. AVA contains potassium, calcium, magnesium metaphosphates alloyed with boron, sulphur, selenium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, molibdenium, cobalt etc. Supercooling (rapid quenching) of the glass melt in the process of production freezes it in thermodynamically non-equilibrium state. This increases the mobility and availability of microelements for microorganisms and plants. The granules of this vitreous fertilizer dissolve gradually over the span of several years with the rate depending on the soil temperature. As a result, a match between the plants' need for nutrition and the availability of microelements is achieved, leading to almost complete (90%) utilization of the fertilizer. Such an 'intellectual' mechanism of nutrition is also very important when it comes to environmental aspects of agriculture, as vanishingly small amounts of fertilizer get into local rivers and lakes. Seasonal variations in the plant activity and the rate of biomass growth occur simultaneously with the corresponding changes in the granules' dissolution rate. The technology of manufacturing allows changing the number and concentrations of the alloying elements, thus varying the properties of the fertilizer within a wide range, including the redox properties critical for catalytic activity. This yields a possibility of optimizing the composition of the fertilizer with respect to the plant cultures, soil properties and climate.

The above properties make AVA a prospective candidate for fertilizing system applied within the framework of conservation agriculture techology

Currently we develop partnership with the Russian Association of Conservation Agriculture aimed at investigating the concrete aspects of such combination of two technologies. The planned investigations include:

Field tests with application of specialized machinery for conservative agriculture
Lab investigations of the soil composition and fertility, as well as the crop biomass and quality
Hydrological studies of fertilizer component migration in the soil and ground waters
Economy calculations