When cultivating brassicas you like to start with compact, sturdy and resilient planting materials, to ensure smooth and easy initial growth. Your plant breeder is faced with the challenge of providing perfect quality seedlings. He is also the first in line when it comes to building resilience in young plants. After that, it’s down to you. We have a number of solutions that are easy to use to make plants robust and resilient and to keep them that way. This applies to the seedlings and plants that are a lot further along in the growing process.
Strengthening resilience therefore preferably starts with the plant breeder. A plant grown to be more robust and resilient from a young age, but also more compact, stronger and sturdier will produce top-quality brassicas later on. To help the young brassica plant to grow healthily, we recommend using our CE marked fertiliser ArgicinPlus. This product contains three different components: orthosilicic acid (silicon), willow bark extract and colloidal silver.
The silicon built into the cell walls of the stalk and leaf literally strengthens these. Water and nutrients also reach their destination as silicon improves the internal transport of moisture.
Finally, the willow bark extract in ArgicinPlus plays an important role in root development. The young brassica plant grows better and more evenly and absorbs water and nutrients more readily.
The use of ArgicinPlus, possibly supplemented by SilicaPower for additional silicon, produces more stocky, compact and sturdy seedlings with short internodes and more leaves. These seedlings are less likely to blow out of the ground after being planted out. Therefore, as a grower consult with your plant breeder about strengthening the seedlings in order to give your commercial growing a (lasting) head start.
Recommended dosage/advice for use ArgicinPlus in the cultivation of brassica plants
When ArgicinPlus is used, the following applies: residue-free, no growth inhibition, no re-entry restrictions and no safety term.
SilicaPower and Cuprum are used successfully in the commercial growing of brassica plants, such as broccoli. Research by Vertify has demonstrated that both products make plants more resilient.
Left: untreated. Right: treated with SilicaPower and Cuprum
SilicaPower is a very pure formulation of silicon that dissolves readily in water. It strengthens the cell walls and the epidermis of the leaf and ensures well-balanced absorption and distribution of calcium, magnesium, manganese and boron throughout the plant. We recommend using SilicaPower during commercial growing for an optimum result. Seedlings, brassicas and broccoli heads that have built more silicon into their cell walls, are stronger, less susceptible to stressful situations and diseases and less attractive to pests. The harvested product is stronger and more suitable for long-term storage.
Recommended dosage/advice for use - SilicaPower in brassicas
Suboptimal growing conditions with, for example, an excess of moisture, can cause considerable problems in a crop like broccoli. Head rot is a major cause of this at that time. Resilient, robust plants are less likely to suffer from problems. We therefore recommend administering Cuprum to maintain resilience during the final stage of broccoli growth. Cuprum is a fertiliser with CE marking that contains micro-copper which is required by the plant to produce certain proteins that help it to maintain its vitality during non-optimal growing conditions. By opting for Cuprum instead of a different copper foliar fertiliser, the amount of copper used is minimal. A responsible choice in terms of its impact on soil life and groundwater.
Recommended dosage/advice for use Cuprum in broccoli
Tailor-made advice concerning your own specific situation
Would you like advice about your own cultivation or farm situation? Contact your dealer, or our advisor Alwin Scholten. Alwin can be contacted on telephone number +31 (0)6 49 33 49 30, or by email.
Strong, compact and vital brasicca seedlings are less likely to blow out of the ground after being planted out and grow into healthy brasicca plants that remain vital. Including in suboptimal growing condtiions.
Your contact person
Alwin Scholten