Technical Update by Richard Cameron
Technical Sales Manager, Richard Cameron of OMEX Horticulture, takes a look at the important role calcium plays in soft fruit production.
We are now into our fruit production period and the pressure is on for our fruit. So the question is; how do we get the best out of our plants to produce the best of quality and highest of yields?
When we are looking at Calcium we
need to remember that it is a very immobile element and, for fruiting plants, lack of calcium can cause many side effects. Calcium is important for cell wall structure and lack of calcium can cause soft fruit to have a lack of firmness, splitting and bruising.
Calcium transportation due to low mobility makes it hard for the plant to transport. To revolve this issue opt for a foliar calcium type product.
OMEX offer a product called CalMax Ultra. A unique formulation containing calcium and AXM, which acts as a 'pump primer' to ensure calcium is effectively transported into the plant cells, even during periods of low metabolic activity.
The increased leaf and fruit calcium allows better storage life and less risk of physical damage as well as a greater resilience to physiological breakdown. This leads to stronger, firmer, fruit with greater storage life as well as an increase in brix levels.
