Farmers must use recommended fertiliser: experts

The advice follows recent research carried out by The Zimbabwean into liquid fertilisers available on the local market.

According to the research, farmers are sceptical about the quality of cheap liquid fertiliser.

Crop Chemicals Manager with Windmill, Caroline Charumbira, said farmers should be educated that liquid fertiliser, nutrifol, is a supplementary soil nutrient booster which cannot be efficient without supporting solid fertiliser.

“Granular compound fertiliser has to be applied to the soil first and should there be need for supplements, then the liquid nutrifol would come in. Nutrifols have low concentration of nitrogen and cannot be self-sufficient in this regard.

“If farmers defy expert advice and conduct experiments with the liquid nutrifol without prior use of solid compounds they will not obtain maximum yields. This type of farming is not advisable,” said Charumbira.

She said dozens of farmers were visiting her office to enquire about the suitability of liquid fertilizer.

Nutrifol helps overcome general nutrient deficiencies thereby increasing potential yield and quality of flowers, fruit and vegetables. Commercial Farmers Union Scientist Plant Disease and agriculture think tank director, Clive Levy, said farmers should find out if the liquid fertiliser they have has been approved and registered with the relevant government ministry.

“What I would advise farmers is that depending on soil quality, they apply compounds such as D, X and others. If they want something to replace Ammonium Nitrate (AN) then they can as well use Urea depending on quantities of rainfall in the area,” said Levy.

Levy said farmers should be cautious about some liquid fertilisers as they could be on trial.

Government experts who could not be identified for professional reasons said liquid nutrifols were supplements that boosted soil nutrients. They urged farmers to use government-approved fertiliser manufactured by registered companies.

However, a Chief Executive Officer with a local organic company that sells liquid fertilizer, Edmond Seremani, said liquid fertilizer could support crop farming on its own without complementary compounds.

“Our liquid fertilizer is not a supplementary application to crop. It performs wonders on its own. Farmers simply have to soak seed in the chemical for at least eight hours before planting and then apply it to the crop later. It is tried and tested as it was used as drought alleviation fertilizer in some countries,” said Seremani.

Some farmers claimed liquid fertiliser had produced good results.

A litre of liquid fertiliser costs an average $6. One litre is diluted with 42 litres of water before being applied to the crop field. Contrary to reasonably high levels of nitrogen content recommended by several agriculture experts for good crop growth, Seremani’s fertilizer has 2.5 percent nitrogen at most.

Farmers said the sudden flooding of the market with new brands of fertiliser had left them in a dilemma as they could not readily tell which product was suitable for their crop.