New Fertilization Technology Can Help Boost Rice Yield
A new revolutionary copper-based fungicide answers the worries of rice farmers regarding pest infestation during the wet season.
Rice farmers will have to endure the wet months ahead with La Nina converging with the northwest monsoon in the next months or so, according to weather forecasters of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomic Services Administration. It is during these months that certain diseases like Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB), Rice Blast, and Sheath Blight are more prevalent among some varieties of rice most of them hybrid varieties. But thanks to a new revolutionary copper-based fungicide, farmers can bid their worries goodbye for they can still have a healthy and an even more productive crop even during the wet season.
This is because recent tests conducted on a rice farm in the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Quezon provinces proved the efficacy of Nordox 50WP. Nordox, the only copper fungicide that sticks even when it rains, is formulated with Cuprous Oxide and is super micronized (90% smaller than three microns, 75% smaller than two microns) resulting to higher surface contact, higher suspensibility, and higher efficiency. Nordox is safe to use and is good for copper deficient soils. With just 20-40 grams of Nordox 50WP farmers can get positive impact at a very economical price.
Healthy Crops
Copper plays a very significant role in providing healthy crops all year round the benefits being:
(1) It reinforces vegetative expansion. As it enters the plant, it activates some enzymes for faster growth of plant cells;
(2) It helps in the generative phase of pollen tubes and embryo development;
(3) It assists in root development due to its action on the cell growth; and
(4) It serves as a transitional metal where it transports the electrons needed to get more energy from the sun during the process of photosynthesis. With Nordox 50WP in the market today, farmers will no longer have to worry about copper deficiencies in plants, which are common in soil high in organic matter.
The presence of copper in Nordox provides helpful benefits especially in treating plant diseases like bacterial leaf streak, sheath blight, potato late blight, early blight in tomato, purple blotch (onion), black rot (cabbage), cercospora leaf blight (carrot), to name a few. This fungicide can be applied through foliar spray application, seedbed treatment / sterilization, as a “slurry,” as fertilizer mix, among others. With the right amount and proper application, Nordox 50WP assures a very favorable outcome.
Nueva Ecija Trial
The positive impact of Nordox 50WP is proven in a test conducted in an irrigated lowland rice field in Barangay Maligaya, Nueva Ecija from June to October 2007. SL8, A rice hybrid cultivar susceptible to the bacterial leaf blight disease was used in the said trial. According to the report compiled by Emmanuel R. Tiongco, Manuel S. dela Cruz, and Edwin C. Martin, Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority (FPA) accredited researchers, the field was first top dressed with urea at 30 kg/ha and 60-60-60 kg/ha NPK during the final harrowing. Nordox 50WP was applied at 41, 48, and 58 days after transplanting (DAT), at 20 g/16L and 40 g/16L test. Data such as disease incidence, disease severity, and rice yield were gathered to prove the effectiveness of Nordox 50 WP.
The report reveals that BLB has a 100% incidence rate in most plots except for the plot applied with Nordox 50WP 20g/16L, which has an incidence rate of 97% only. At 65 days after transplanting, the plots applied with Nordox 50WP 20 g/i6L and 40 g/16L were able to treat 90% and 84% of the infected plants respectively.
In terms of BLB severity, trials treated with Nordox 50WP 2og/16L and 4og/16L showed a decrease in disease infection by 2.14% and 1.70% respectively at 5 % flowering time or 65 days after transplanting as compared to the untreated one, which has 2.89% incidence rate. Also, the average yield of the treated plants with Nordox 50WP 20g/16L and 40g/16L showed significant results-filled grains of 1783.75 and 1807.00 respectively, while the untreated plants has 1415.25; and 5.08 tons/ha and 5.30 tons/ha grain yield respectively, as compared to the 4.36 tons/ha of untreated one at 5% flowering or 65 days after transplanting.
Quezon Trial
Nordox 50WP’s effectiveness was again proven in the plantation of PSBRC28 rice variety in a 15,000 square meter farm of Mr. Narlito Morales in Paiisa, Tiaong, Quezon. Symptoms of BLB have been found in most of the rice plant in his farm. A quick and simple application of Nordox 50WP to the crop with symptoms of BLB confirms Nordox’s benefits.
Morales planted the rice variety on July 8, 2007. On the first signs of BLB noted on August 7, Morales applied Nordox 5oWP at the rate of 259 Nordox SoWP with 16 liters of water 31 days after transplanting. His second application of 2509 Nordox 50WP plus 50K with 46-0-0 urea was conducted on August 20, 44 days after transplanting. Seventy days after transplanting, Morales sprayed Nordox SoWP to the plants with BLB symptoms. He then sprayed Peters Professional Water Soluble Fertilizer Blossom Booster (9-45-15), a supplement fertilizer, 75 days after. On the 85th day, Peters Professional Water Soluble Fertilizer Yield Booster (15-10-30) was sprayed, and on the 90th day, Peters Professional Water Soluble Fertilizer Yield Booster was again applied.
Positive effects of Nordox were evident in the number of rice bags the land has produced during the harvest on October 9. Results of the tests show that the land area of 1,622.5 square meter that was treated with Nordox 50WP had a remarkable increase of 42% (94.85 cavans/ha) as compared to the 66.74 cavans/ha of the untreated area of 1,775.5 square meter.
Other significant data proving the positive effects of Nordox SoWP: 14% increase in plant height; 74% increase in tiller production; 130% increase in number of grains/plant; 36% increase in number of grains/panicle; 20% increase in root length; and 46% increase in fresh yield. Morales was also grateful for the additional savings and income he was able to get in using Nordox.
The trials conducted in the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Quezon are a testament of the efficacy of Nordox 50WP. Now, hybrid rice farmers need not worry about the devastating effects of rice blast and Bacterial Leaf Blight. With Nordox 50WP, they are assured of a bountiful harvest all year round.
Nordox 50WP Super Micronized Fungicide is manufactured by ISO certified Nordox Industrier AS, a Norway based company with sales to 90 countries worldwide. It is exclusively distributed in the Philippines by Allied Botanical Corporation, the first fully Filipino privately-owned vegetable breeding company. The company has its own research and breeding station in Tayug, Pangasinan.
