Increase marketable yield and shelf life

According to Mike Wainwright, the CaT foliar biostimulant technology in Amētros helps to move calcium to exactly where it’s needed. Calcium is crucial for building the ‘backbone’ structure of plant cells, strong cell walls and membranes. If fruits don’t get enough calcium, their cells can collapse, leading to disorders that reduce yield, quality, and shelf life, such as bitter pit in apples.

Calcium primarily moves through the plant with water in the xylem, not with sugars in the phloem. This means that calcium movement depends on water flow through the plant, which is driven by transpiration. The waxy surfaces and lack of stomata on fruit surfaces can cause low transpiration rates, thus limiting the availability of calcium. Calcium supply is especially important in fast-growing parts, like fruits, that have a high demand.

The CaT biostimulant technology in Amētros stimulates an alternative way for calcium to travel through the plant. Normally, calcium moves in water that flows around but not through cells. When this primary route is limited, due to low water flow, movement through cells becomes more important. CaT helps open calcium channels in cell membranes, increasing calcium levels inside the cells so enhancing calcium mobility.

Imaging method

To demonstrate this, researchers at Lancaster University used a sensitive imaging method to capture plant calcium movement, with areas lighting up when calcium levels in cells were high.

They treated plants with either a CaT product or a calcium nitrate control, applying it to just
one leaf. The CaT-treated plant quickly showed a rise in calcium levels, which then spread to other leaves that were not treated. The effect of CaT was much stronger than the calcium nitrate control.

Amētros consistently reduces the incidence of bitter pit in apples. The incidence of bitter pit in Bramley apples was reduced by Amētros (1.5-litres/ha) compared to all other treatments. Furthermore, fruit from Amētros treated trees had the highest calcium content, despite a lower calcium application rate. This was an independent trial conducted by East Malling Research, UK.

Multiple benefits

The advantages of using CaT Technology are not restricted to tree fruit production. For a wide range of soft fruit, multiple trials have shown that Amētros leads to benefits including increased marketable yield, improved quality and longer shelf life.

Blueberries have better fruit firmness and fewer unmarketable fruit after storage. Similarly, strawberries show enhanced fruit firmness at harvest and a significant reduction in fruit rejections during storage. In trials, both strawberries and raspberries demonstrated increased Brix levels following Amētros application. Trials in table grapes have shown increased berry calcium content, increased berry size and yield, as well as less berry detachment during storage.

Amētros can be added to most routine spray programmes (refer to label recommendations prior to application) so often no additional spray passes are needed to apply the product. Given the importance of calcium and how its mobility can limit effective crop nutrition, including a solution to help this issue is an important addition to the fruit grower’s armoury.

With many years of successful use over a wide range of fruit crops, it’s clear that the CaT Technology used in Amētros is a tried and tested method of improving the marketable yield and shelf life of fruit.

Amētros is available to UK fruit growers exclusively via Hortifeeds. For more information, visit www.hortifeeds.co.uk

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