Bananas are grown in more than 150 countries and require a lot of potassium, 600 kg/ha, to yield well. In Southern Israel a farmer is working with specialists to measure the benefits of Polysulphate fertilizer - a source of potassium - on his crop.
Precision nutrition
Farmer Marcelo Tregerman cultivates sandy soil irrigated with desalinated water in Sde Avraham, Southern Israel. The farm is an organic banana plantation and member of the Israel Bio-Organic Agriculture Association (IBOAA). Polysulphate is a natural mineral fertilizer and has the benefit that as well as providing potassium, it also contains sulphur, magnesium and calcium, and it is approved for use in organic farming systems.
With the supervision and guidance of IBOAA Soil Fertility and Plant Nutrition specialist, Dr. Yzhar Tugendhaft and ICL Haifa agronomist, Nitzan Shatzkin, Mr. Tregerman has already applied standard Polysulphate to selected young shoots.
Pilot study relevant to banana growers worldwide
In this pilot study the researchers will check the effect Polysulphate has on bananas by measuring the treated shoots’ growth right through to the yield of fruit they each produce.
For more information on how and why this trial, being carried out within the framework of Centre for Fertilization and Plant Nutrition (CFPN), watch the film - Investigating benefits of Polysulphate on Bananas.