Poland pickles it, Kenya fries it, UK boils it. We’re talking here about the humble cabbage. Grown as crop for over three thousand years, cabbage as a crop is cultivated worldwide to be eaten and enjoyed, even if to different recipes. But there’s room for improvement when it comes to growing cabbage carefully and productively. Thanks to recent IPI (International Potash Institute) research in Brazil we have news for you of how natural polyhalite fertilizer can help.
Apparently China leads the cabbage league table, producing about half the cabbages eaten on earth every year, but the country with the highest per capita consumption is Russia. Wherever in the world cabbage is grown, its high demand for nutrients makes it vulnerable to deficiencies and susceptible to fungal and bacterial diseases. To counter this risk, cabbage is often grown on high fertility land. The tendency is for over-fertilization by farmers which is not good for the soil, the environment or the costs of production.
Polysulphate pushes cabbage production up
New evidence on the benefits of using natural polyhalite fertilizer has shown how this use of Polysulphate boosts cabbage vigor and productivity. The results of trials carried out in Brazil were presented recently at the 36th Brazilian Congress on Soil Science. They are summarized neatly in a poster available in English and Portuguese. They show that there is something to learn in order to carefully and cost-effectively boost cabbage yield.
A control was compared with applications of straight MOP (potassium chloride, KCl) and combinations of MOP and polyhalite from 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% polyhalite through to100% polyhalite. Three main findings:
- Vigor was seen to peak where 40-60% Polyhalite was used;
- Polyhalite significantly reduced black rot in the leaves (Xanthomonas campestris);
- Partial replacement of MOP by Polyhalite at 80% significantly increased crop yield by 12%.
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