Biologix Newsletter Jan 2023

Welcome to the Biologix Newsletter for Jan 2023

Summer is here and so begins one of the most challenging seasons for most NZ growers and farmers. With the fast drying conditions, high UV and high temperatures, many plants find this a highly stressed time of year. Soil health is comprised if allowed to be bare of cover for any significant length of time, it's never more harmful than over the next 3 months.

All these stress factors increase the chances that your plant will suffer pest and disease attacks. Plants that are growing out of season will be more vunerable. The extra light and heat can actually reduce the period a plant can photosynthesise. The ideal leaf temperature for most plants to maximise photosynthesis is actually only 18-20 deg C.

The best defence against pest and disease, is plant and soil health. The best strategy is actually to maintain plant Brix above 12. See below. 

The high Brix (sugars) in the plant sap ferments in the insects guts to alcohol and they are incapable of processing this and die. The insects can detect the Brix levels in plants so can select the low Brix weaker plants to feed on. Insects have been described as the garbage collectors in nature.

What causes low Brix? The most common reason is excess nitrate nitrogen. Excess nitrogen dilutes all other minerals. It is impossible to achieve a Brix above 6-7 with excess nitrate nitrogen.

High Brix is achieved only with a balanced nutrient approach and with the microbial bridge functioning. This is why soil balance principals like Albrecht's Cation Balancing is so important, it's a vital part in the soils biological health. This means that high brix also means its nutrient dense and its pH is balanced making it highly resistant to disease, as its immune system response (ISR) is functioning at the highest possible level.

How do you insure high brix levels? The greatest tool is Foliar Feeding. This allows the plant to thrive even when the soil health is not at its best. The Biologix Horti-Tech Range of Foliar Boost and Foliar Protect are specially designed with this goal in mind.

Summer Solutions

Sometimes we need a tool that gives us an instant control while we work to improve the plant and soil conditions. There is often no more useful tool than, Precision MD

It's a silicon based plant soap that when combined with many other products improves their uptake and efficacy while also smothering pest insects. It's non toxic and leaves no residue so it has no withholding period. It can be very useful in controlling, White Fly, Spider Mite, Thrips, Psyllid, bronze beetle and many more. This is the greenest chemical option there is and is allowed in organics in many countries now.

Product of the Month

Growers see copper as a useful and sometimes vital tool, but most of those tools are copper fungicide products. The idea is they are toxic to the diseases like PSA is often the basis of their use. The science on copper says something quite different. It's a proven fact, copper fungicides are often NOT toxic to the disease at all. Trials comparing copper fungicides against copper nutrition show the nutritional approach is better at both prevention and eradication of disease. It has been said by Profession Don Huber that "copper in the plant is 75% more effective than on the outside".

The copper that gets into the plant boosts the plants immune system and its response to the disease is its primary mode of action. Copper in a nutritional plant available form Copper is a cell strengthener and is an Immume System Response elicitor.

The amino acid chelation of Copper-Maxx™ delivers copper in a highly plant available form. Promotes ripening & colouring fruit – Supports plant health – Strengthens cells, improves photosynthesis – Contains 5% Cu, 5.5% N – 40% total amino acids

BIOLOGIX HORTI-TECH RANGE

Biologix Horti-Tech Range are highly complex products, that are extremely simple to use, developed over 10+ years, based firstly on our experience as commercial growers and then improved with the experience of our growers all over NZ. When this unique range is combined with the soil health and Albrecht soil balancing principals they achieve amazing results. Growers have found crops no longer suffer losses from pest and disease.