Page 19 - Vol.36-No.9 issue

CROP PROTECTION

cause even when soil calcium levels are
nominally high, plant roots and vascular
systems invariably experience difficul- JAIN Irrigation
ty in access, absorption and delivery of
calcium because the divalent calcium Automatic Scheduling
ion has intrinsic poor mobility. Wins Irrigation
But this is only one part of the prob- Association 2020
lem because when ‘calcium interacts
with phosphorous’ insoluble calcium People’s Choice Award
phosphate is formed. “It is in these com-
monly-occurring situations where Omex Jain Irrigation, Inc., the world lead-
Calmax comes into its own and shows er in irrigation technology, today
its strength as a foliar spray by furnish- announced that Jain Unity, its patent-
ing the plant with soluble and there- ed automatic irrigation scheduling
fore plant available calcium,” says Peter software and environmental services
Prentis. He adds how benefits accruing platform, has won the Irrigation Asso-
from foliar feeding using Omex Calmax ciation 2020 People’s Choice Award
are boosted by applying the product in in the Specialty Landscape Irrigation
tandem with the phosphite-containing category of the New Product Con-
Omex DP98. “This is achieved by tank test. The contest, which is usually
mixing Omex Calmax and Omex DP98. held during the annual Irrigation
The phosphite in DP98 helps to car- Fast growing plants and a Show and Education Week, was host-
ry calcium into the plant, swiftly, safely uniformly-maturing crop of cherry ed online by the IA this year due to
and securely via absorption through the tomato are the fruits of foliar the pandemic. The People’s Choice
leaves,” says Peter feeding (Picture courtesy Omex) award was selected by those view-
ing the entries online and recognized
Blossom end rot is caused first and the favorite products released in the
foremost by a shortfall in calcium nutri- past 12 months based on innovation,
tion but it may extend into a disease-re- design quality, increased water/re-
lated problem whereby fungus-like Phy- source-use efficiency, ease of use, and
tophthora pathogens exploit the initial product life expectancy.
physiological and calcium related prob- Unity tracks the real-time state of
lem as secondary invaders. The reduc- moisture in a plant’s root zone to cal-
tion in calcium mobility experienced culate and then activate a smart con-
under high temperature conditions is troller when best and how-to water. It
well known and Saudi Arabian growers also leverages predictive modeling of
will typically foliar feed their crops with environmental changes in the future,
Omex Calmax to overcome tempera- such as forecast rainfall, to reduce the
ture-related constraints on calcium avail- running of irrigation systems for re-
ability. filling root zones and balancing nutri-
ent loss to maintain peak plant health.
“We’re incredibly honored by this
recognition of Jain Unity from our
peers,” said Aric Olson, President of
Jain Irrigation, Inc., “It acknowledges
Soft fruit such as strawberry is the importance of utilizing forecast
well catered for by the Omex weather data that increases precision
range of soluble nutrient in water management, and ultimate-
products applied by foliar ly, conservation of freshwater use for
feeding (Picture courtesy Omex) landscaping. Unity has set a new bar
in irrigation technology by using pre-
Key role of calcium in the plant is as a dictive analytics to save more water
component of calcium pectate which ce- than the prior generations of weath-
ments the walls of adjoining cells togeth- er-based irrigation controllers.”
er to form strong and rigid plant tissues. Unity connects to smart irrigation
Any shortfall in calcium will correspond- controllers on-site over 3G/4G/5G
ingly show up as tissue structure-related wireless networks while giving users
deficiency symptoms. Examples of these remote access to those controllers
are blossom end rot (tomato, capsicum from anywhere on their computer
pepper, aubergine and cucumber), or smartphone. Unity automatically
bitter pit (apples and pears), tip burn sends users a weekly notification that
(lettuce) and internal browning (potato shows the amount of ET (evapotrans-
tubers). These symptoms are some of piration) moisture loss and replenish-
the most frequently occurring and best Fruits of foliar feeding with ment by rain and/or running the irri-
known effects of insufficient plant avail- soluble nutrient products from gation system.
able calcium. Omex (Picture courtesy Omex) Circle 20 on enquiry card

Circle 19 on enquiry card
Vol. 36 No. 9 17