Agronomy Advice
May 09, 2024
Stimulating Growth by Enhancing Nature
Yara’s expertise isn’t solely focussed on NPKS fertiliser development, over the years Yara have worked hard to reduce our impact on the environment as well as developing more sustainable products.
One of those developments has been a new range of biostimulant products branded YaraAmplix. These products are formulated with mostly natural ingredients such as seaweed and plant extracts, and act to enhance natural processes.
Supporting regenerative agriculture
Biostimulants differ from other inputs such as fertilisers as they enhance natural processes within the crops themselves. By enhancing our crops’ natural potential these biostimulants can support our efforts to adopt a more regenerative approach to farming.
Key Benefits of Biostimulants
- Enhances tolerance to abiotic stress
- Support soil health
- Improves nutrient use efficiency
- Improve biodiversity
- Increases crop quality and yield
We’ve undertaken a lot of trial work to ensure there is a good return on investment for farmers as well as enabling us to provide helpful application guidance. Designed to be a complement to our range of fertilisers, our new biostimulant products have delivered some exciting results.
Maize
Our 2023 trials in Ireland have shown some really exciting results for Maize. Applying YaraAmplix Optitrac in addition to YaraVita CropBoost, delivered a yield increase of 8.2% - a 4.5 t/ha increase above the control with a straight nitrogen product.
There is an alternative biostimulant product that can be used for maize called YaraAmplix Optinue. In trials this returned a 2.5% increase in yield, the equivalent of 1.13 t/ha.
Yara's Recommendation
Our recommendation for a maize crop would be to use the biostimulant in conjunction with 5lt/ha YaraVita CropBoost, teamed with 2 lt/ha YaraAmplix Optitrac or Optinue at 4-8 TL stage.
Potatoes
Over 11 trial sites in 2022 delivered an average of 3.5% increase in yield of potatoes. In 2023, we undertook 3 trials across the UK with an average yield increase of 8.8% delivering a return of investment of around 12:1. We will be repeating the same trials as in 2022 this year to ensure accuracy of results.
In all trials, including the biostimulant as part of the nutrition programme in combination with other fertiliser products delivered the highest increase.
Yara's Recommendation
Based on our trial work our recommendation for potatoes is to apply 3lt/ha YaraAmplix Optitrac and 5lt/ha YaraVita Magphos K at tuber initiation and then the same again at tuber bulking.
