It is always an interesting learning point that plants are hit by stress and many farmers find this topic amusing. How true is it? Do plants suffer from stress?
Biostimulants
You may have come across products known as bio-stimulants, growth boosters, growth Promoters, anti-stress products, growth hormones etc. are they of any use to the plants? Is it important to use them or they are just unnecessary expense? Let us explore this.
In Plants
Plants react to stress by stopping production and active growth. The energy saved from this process is then directed to mitigating effects of stress. The plants feels under threat and hormones are produced to direct most of the energy to fighting this threat. It is a survival tactic. If the plant does not react this way, some stress factor may bring about death or irreparable damage.
Stress Factors
In plants, the stress may be brought by;
✓ poor soil conditions
✓ pests
✓Disease
✓Nutritional deficiency
✓physical injury
✓temperature variations
✓acute moisture shortage
✓chemical injury
Most of this stress factors are always present and hence the plant is always in a stressed mode. Only that the level may be low, medium or high depending on the intensity of the stress factors.
During hot time of the day, animals retreat to shade areas. What about plant? They don’t have the luxury of locomotion and hence they are hit hard by the stress factors. That is why growth boosting, bio-stimulation is important!
Why Growth boosting/Bio-stimulation?
The plant process is usually affected by the stress factor leading to slow growth and consequently poor production. More so if the stress factors are constant.when biostimulation aspect is applied (mainly in form of growth boosters, biostimulants and hormones) they speed up the plant process thus generating extra energy. This extra energy is used to mitigating the effects of stress (repairing broken tissues, speeding up transpiration to cool the plant during hot weather and slowing it down to retain heat during cold weather etc..) as the plants Continues with near normal growth and thus productivity is not affected much.
OPTIMIZER
Optimizer from Greenlife Crop Protection Africa is the best bio-stimulant, growth booster and anti-stress agent in the market.
OPTIMIZER® is a pure natural fermented seaweed Liquid bio-fertilizer enriched with chelating NPK and contains natural plant hormones (Auxins, Cytokinnins, Gibberellins), amino acids, alginic acid, mannitol, betaine, arachidonic acid, carbohydrates, vitamins, nucleotides, humic acids and counter – stress agents as well as macro-elements and microelements.
How often should you use Optimizer.
If the plant is growing normally and stress factors are low, once every 2-3 weeks is recommended. If the plant is stressed, apply weekly until plant has suppressed the stress.
During growth stages that require a lot of energy like immediately after germination or transplanting, flowering stage, fruit initiation stage, immediately after harvesting; this stages will require Optimizer to give that needed extra energy.
Natural Product
OPTIMIZER is natural since it is produced from a sea weed. It is a product extracted from weeds growing on the floor of the Ocean. It cannot produce abnormal growth since it has aspect of nature balance being produced from natural occurring material. A precaution however is to avoid over-stimulation.
Conclusion
In order to maximize your crop productivity, always include Optimizer in your spray regime as need be. Normal rates are 10ml in 20L of water during spray and 20ml in 20L of water when drenching.
