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A Johannesburg-based biotechnology company, which specialises in the use of micro-organisms, hopes to soon have a new product on the market, which could considerably reduce maize farmers’ use of nitrogen fertiliser. It could also save the farmers a lot of money, while helping them produce the same or bigger yields.
According to Gerhard Vermaak, a biologist and managing director of Custom Chemistry based in Fourways, Gauteng, test results thus far are very encouraging in their quest to replace the conventional nitrogen fertilisers for crops such as maize.
Nitrogen fertiliser is important in ensuring high crop yields, but, with the fertiliser prices trebling over the past few years, this has increased the farmers’ input costs. Vermaak estimates that Custom Chemistry’s technology could ultimately be available on the market at 10% of the cost of the nitrogen fertilisers.
Moreover, it’s a natural solution. The company is now awaiting approval from the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development for the technology to be commercially marketed. It is also in the process of patenting its work.
Vermaak describes the new technology as a breakthrough for the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to nitrogen that is available to the plant and essential for healthy growth.
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This happens through the symbiosis of two organisms which are both known, but the interaction between them has never been seen before.
The one organism can convert atmospheric nitrogen, but the other supplies the sugar (energy) that the former needs to do this.
The results of laboratory and pot tests, in which maize was planted in soils with traditional chemical nitrogen fertiliser, with Custom Chemistry’s technology and with no fertiliser added, correspond with the mathematical, scientific result.
It is now being tested in practice and on a bigger scale of about 6 000 hectares – mainly on maize – but also on soya and sunflower.
According to Vermaak’s brother Paul, who works as operations head at Custom Chemistry, the test sites are in Limpopo, the Free State and North West, and include different maize varieties, soil and climatic conditions.
Jan Potgieter, of Rushof farm in the Viljoenskroon district in North West, planted 50ha of maize using the new technology. He says he will do this for three years to see how it works.
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For the test project, Potgieter used the product in soluble powder form so that, during the planting process, he can put both the product and the seed into the soil, instead of the chemical nitrogen fertiliser that he normally uses.
Later in the growth phase, he sprinkled traditional fertiliser as top fertiliser. The active bacteria can also be mixed into granules or compost and sprinkled or applied through irrigation.
For Potgieter, with a BCom degree and MBA qualification under his belt, it’s about efficiency and the numbers. Ultimately the return on investment needs to be worth the time and cost involved. “There are many variables. This 50ha is very good soil and this year it’s wet. The harvester will do the talking.”
He does say, however, that if Custom Chemistry’s product did not work, he would have seen a difference between this 50ha of maize and other crops on his farm where he used the conventional fertilisers.
According to Vermaak, their technology removed about 80% of the conventional nitrogen fertiliser for Potgieter during the process. Another advantage is that, where a farmer would have to transport a truckload of fertiliser, Custom Chemistry’s product fits on to a bakkie for the same number of hectares to be fertilised.
Vermaak explains that this approach with microbes is that one needs to look at how you get an organism to do its job. Or, put differently: identify what it needs to do its job and you have a solution.
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The soil organism that draws nitrogen from the air has been well known for a long time. However, before, no one could get it to convert enough atmospheric nitrogen to make any real difference in sufficient fertilisation of a plant, because the organism needs to have something to produce from, he says.
Through Custom Chemistry’s concept, which the company calls EL-I (early life initiation) technology, and where the two organisms are added to the ground (instead of the traditional nitrogen fertiliser), small bits of nitrogen are produced each day to feed the plant.
The breakthrough actually came due to Covid-19, Vermaak says. He has a series of biological cleaning agents which are used in big contracts for the cleaning of offices and restaurants across the continent.
This income stream all but dried up during the pandemic and he was forced to further investigate his interest in solutions for the agricultural sector.
