Agronomy Advice

YaraAmplix Optitrac helps combat stress in potatoes

There are many types of biostimulants on the market, each with different purposes. Yara's biostimulant products focus on is enhancing tolerance to abiotic stresses such as extreme temperatures or drought. They contain bioactive components that help the plant mitigate the effects of stress.


Farmer and Yara Agronomist in a potato field
Farmer and Yara Agronomist in a potato field

There are many types of biostimulants on the market, each with different purposes. What Yara products focus on is enhancing tolerance to abiotic stresses (e.g. extreme temperatures, drought, pesticide stress). They contain bioactive components such as fucoidan, mannitol, vitamins, organic acids, amino acids and also some of the nutrients that are involved in various mechanisms of the plant.

Ascophyllum nodosum, which is one of the compounds within Yara products, can induce hormone-like activity, improving the plant's hormonal perception and enhancing its effect. The composition of the product can also have an effect on many plant processes that could subsequently result in improved plant growth and yield improvement (e.g. increased photosynthetic efficiency, improved nutrient uptake, mitigation of abiotic stress effects through the mechanisms mentioned above, etc).

YaraAmplix Optitrac improved marketable yield of potatoes

UK trials data has shown that YaraAmplix Optitrac increased both tuber numbers and tuber weight resulting in a higher proportion of class II and a higher market value.  Even at current low prices, this represents an increased return of £92 and a return on investment of 4:1 Alternatively we can calculate that only 158kg additional yield is needed to cover the cost of the Optitrac application.

Effect of Biotrac on the market value of potatoes.png

YaraAmplix Optitrac enhances plant tolerance to abiotic stress

YaraAmplix Optitrac is a complex formulation containing nutrients and bioactive components from Ascophyllum nodosum, organic acids and vitamins. Optitrac can trigger various metabolic processes within the plant due to its composition; which impacts activities such as regulation of water, stress tolerance, stomatal conductance and detoxification of oxygen free radicals.

This in turn can lead to improvements in the efficiency of plant processes and therefore result in improved plant growth and yield. Work shows that increases in both nutrient use efficiency, uptake and photosynthetic efficiency can be observed.

Enhance tolerance to abiotic stress (e.g. extreme temperatures, drought, pesticide stress). This is due to the presence of bioactive components (e.g. fucoidan, mannitol, vitamins, organic acids, amino acids, etc) and some of the nutrients that are involved in various mechanisms of the plant (e.g. detoxification of reactive oxygen species, osmoprotectant activity, regulation of genes involved in abiotic stress tolerance, stomatal conductance, regulation of water status, etc).

Improve flowering and fruit set. Adverse external factors can actually cause problems such as the reduced formation of pollen, obstacles to pollination, difficulties of growth in the pollen tube and reduced fertilization. From a purely physiological perspective in all of these cases, the hormonal levels necessary to achieve fruit set are not reached with subsequent deterioration of the floral parts and with negative repercussions in terms of production. Optitrac composition can stimulate the physiological processes that are supporting flowering and fruit-set. Moreover, the bioactive components of Ascophyllum nodosum can induce hormone-like activity, improving the plant's hormonal perception and enhancing their effect. In that way, Optitrac has a positive effect on fertilization and subsequently fruit set.

Plant growth & improved yield. The composition of the product can have an effect on many plant processes that could subsequently result in improved plant growth and yield improvement (e.g. increased photosynthetic efficiency, improved nutrient uptake, mitigation of abiotic stress effects through the mechanisms mentioned above, etc).

Farmer in a potato field Farmer in a potato field

Make sure your potatoes have all the nutrients they need

Making sure your potatoes are fully supplied with all the nutrients they require is the best way to improve crop yield and tuber quality

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How much will it cost?

See how much extra yield is needed to justify the cost of a YaraVita application.

YaraVita cost calculator

Extra yield needed to cover cost of application

23 kg/ha
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Potato agronomy and fertiliser advice
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