Agronomy firm Fast Ltd has opened a brand-new laboratory at its new offices in Brogdale Farm, Faversham.
Larger laboratory facilities and a significant investment in analysing equipment means the benefit to growers comes in a faster turnaround service and more detailed results. Soil, water and leaf analysis are still the core business within the lab, but Mark Botting, laboratory manager at Fast, has noticed that growers are increasingly using sap analysis to obtain a 48-hour response.
When the turnaround time of field crops is around 90 days, any nutritional problems need a faster analysis than soil sampling can give.
With a huge growth in the variety and quantity of crops being grown in substrates, irrigation and feed systems are major investments which must perform to near perfection to justify their price tags, said Fast.
Sap analysis reports exactly which nutrients are mobile in the plant at that point of time.
The testing originated from Australia, where it was developed for the country’s highly irrigation-dependent fruit and vegetable crops. The technology was introduced to Fast Ltd in 1985.
Botting said: “Sap is extracted from any fleshy part of the leaf, diluted and put through a spectrometer to accurately measure the levels of each specific element.
“An accurate report is produced showing the actual levels of the 12 most vital elements compared to the optimal level.
“With an increase in glasshouse/polytunnel-grown crops, higher density orchards and fast crop turnaround, sap analysis results will become integral to every grower’s feeding programme.”
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