Fylloton – The Key for Early Season Plant Stress Mitigation.

In the last edition of Growing Success, orchardists were introduced to Fylloton, in an article about biostimulants. These can help growers improve crop management, when dealing with approaching environmental conditions.

Since then, the spring and early summer of 2022/2023 have proven no exception to the rule of unpredictability. Growers have faced more challenges with heavy rainfall, cold stress and a frost event. While it’s difficult to measure the impact of these conditions on the plant’s ability to function, we do know that the level of rainfall this Spring during application of fertiliser side dressings, likely leached the majority of nitrate beyond the rootzone. Low soil oxygen levels restricted the nitrification process in the soil, reducing the available nitrogen for plant uptake. In addition, temperatures sub 12°C restrict the plant’s ability to utilise inorganic nitrogen to drive growth.

What’s important when faced with these challenges? Questions around N utilization efficiency and promotion of the plant’s metabolic process come to mind, normally followed by what do I use? Here, Fylloton comes into its own. Fylloton delivers a high level of Organic N in the form of free amino acids, particularly Tryptophan. This helps growers to maneuver their crop growth through abiotic stress conditions, which result in stalling vegetative development. Fylloton is also ideal for vegetative recovery from chemical growth arrest (causing phytotoxicity) and physical growth arrest after partial frost damage. However, Fylloton is best used when applied in a programme anticipating abiotic stress as part of normal spring growing conditions. This provides the plant with the ability to cope with abiotic stress events and promotes quicker recovery with a reduction in growth arrest.

Fylloton applications were monitored by Farmlands Advisors after the spring frost event and following cold snap.

In the words of Te Puke Technical Advisor Dean Gower: “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it! I have a client who wanted to develop his canopy earlier in the season, he has good flower numbers but due to the orchard altitude he struggles to establish good leaf canopy prior to flowering. He applied Fylloton on the Monday prior to the Thursday frost; he was not severely frosted with occasional minimal leaf damage.”

“I’m impressed at how the growth continued through the chill period; leaf colour remained good. Often when a chill is experienced Kiwifruit vines struggle, have a growth check and it takes about a week of fine / warm weather before they get going again, in this instance they just kept on pushing – with no growth check. The canopy did not stall due to the cold, it continued to extend, shoot size evened up with great leaf canopy development prior to flowering.”