Is your yield hitting a wall?
Golden Bay Dolomite can be an essential ingredient to your soil nutrient program
West Farms
Location Wakanui, coastal Ashburton
Farm Type Cropping
Production Intensive specialty crop rotation, specialty hemp & buckwheat
Cropping farmer Andrew West’s property is located east of Ashburton in the typical coastal district of Wakanui, where temperatures average 16 degrees and the annual rainfall is 264mm. The cropping program has a relatively intensive rotation including specialty crops buckwheat and hemp. Andrew recalls that around 8 years ago he felt like they were hitting a wall yield wise and this stimulated them to start looking outside the square about what was missing.
They were fertilising the crops rather than the soil
Understanding the importance of both magnesium and calcium in soils
Changing to Golden Bay Dolomite as a natural biological approach for building soil nutrients
Once realising that they were in a system that was merely feeding their crops rather than building their soil nutrient status they began to investigate the role different nutrients play in the profile. The importance of both magnesium and calcium in maintaining healthy soils became evident. Once they understood the role of these two nutrients a natural link to Golden Bay Dolomite was made with its composition of magnesium and calcium.
Based on their production findings, Andrew believes that Golden Bay Dolomite is an essential ingredient to any nutrient program. As a natural product, Golden Bay Dolomite is one of the best sources available in the world of magnesium and calcium and is easier on soils than synthetic forms. The benefits of both magnesium and calcium are that they provide a foundation for the uptake of other key nutrients (NPKS) needed for plant growth. Calcium in particular acts as a catalyst for the translocation of other nutrients increasing their plant availability.
