All the nutrients your crops need to produce a healthy and abundant harvest are available in the complete range of products offered by United Fertilizers Company Ltd (UFCL), the trading arm of two Russian fertiliser manufacturers, Uralkali and Uralchem. This article briefly describes why you should use different water-soluble fertilisers with various irrigation systems.

It is crucial to provide crops with calcium, especially in high-output soilless and soil-based growing systems. Calcium is barely redistributed between different plant organs, but plays a vital role in stress resistance of plants, influences the quality of fruits and significantly extends their shelf life. Calcium deficiency leads to well-known physiological plant disorders, such as blossom-end rot and fruit curling. Calcium nitrate is the only source of readily available calcium for crops. Uralchem’s Concentrated Grade contains 25% more calcium than any other competing product, making it unique and perfect for use in irrigation systems.

Phosphorus availability is critical during the root system formation stage, but is also required throughout the growing period. With monoammonium phosphate (MAP 12:61), crops simultaneously source two readily available nutrients: nitrogen (12% by weight) and phosphorus (61% by weight). MAP 12:61 can be tank mixed, foliar-applied, or mixed with other fertilisers. Worth noting is that it should not be blended with fertilisers containing calcium or magnesium.

Potassium is required during the entire vegetation period to maintain a water balance in the plant, to enhance nitrogen uptake, to redistribute nutrients, to ensure assimilation among plant organs and finally to increase yield and plant quality. Therefore, potassium nitrate is irreplaceable in the preparation of concentrated stock solutions and for further injection into irrigation systems. This potassium fertiliser is chloride free, contains 46,2% K2O and 13,7% nitrogen in nitric form.

Urea micro prills is another Uralchem high-tech product from their water-soluble line. It is a modified urea with a very fine granulometric composition, completely soluble in water. It can be applied through drip irrigation or onto the leaves. Urea micro prills can also be effectively used for preparation of water-soluble fertiliser mixtures, characterised by outstanding physical properties such as high homogeneity, non-caking and non-flaking.

Plants require different compositions of nutrients at different growth stages.

The Solar NPK Micro family aggregates three major types of ready-to-use, 100% water-soluble NPK mixtures with micronutrients (ME) for foliar application:

1. high phosphorus (for example Start 13:40:13+ME) to be used at the beginning of the vegetation period to support and stimulate the establishment of the root system,
2. balanced (for example Universal 18:18:18+3MgO+ME) to correct plant nutrition and soften the negative impact of various possible stresses,
3. high potassium (for example Final 15:7:30+3MgO+ME) to be used at the reproductive stage to improve output and quality of produce, by helping crops to translocate nutrients and assimilate from one organ to the other.

Aqua Drop represents the line of high purity water-soluble NPK mixtures. These are based on potassium chloride as a source of potassium, instead of more expensive potassium nitrate, which makes Aqua Drop a cost-effective alternative to above-mentioned fertilisers. The range of NPK grades is created to provide crops with optimum mineral nutrition at every growth stage. However, due to the chloride content, the application of Aqua Drop is limited to open-field drip-irrigation systems and chloride tolerant crops.

DripKali is a potassium chloride (MOP), commonly used in fertigation for a variety of crops. It is the most concentrated source of potassium among potash fertilisers. It contains 62% K2O, compared to the 50% K2O in potassium sulphate and 46% K2O in potassium nitrate. Besides, MOP is compatible with all types of water-soluble fertilisers and can be safely used in irrigation systems.

For more information visit the United Fertilizers website at ufertilizers.com or send an e-mail to M.Poltoradnev@ufertilizers.com