New Fertilizer with Lower Water Demand

New fertilizer form California Safe Soil heralded for yield and lower water demand

A new type of fertilizer introduced in Salinas last week has been shown to reduce nitrogen runoff, increase yield and lower water demand, particularly for strawberries — an $858 million crop in Monterey County — while using produce scraps as a base ingredient.

Still in early stage expansion mode, Sacramento-based California Safe Soil, or CSS, has plans to build five plants over the next five years as word spreads about the product, called Harvest to Harvest, or H2H. Initial research and trials have shown the product can cut water demand by up to 25 percent and nitrogen fertilizer use by 50 percent while increasing crop yields up to 30 percent.

While much of the technology is proprietary, the basic concept is that H2H increases organic matter that retains water and nitrogen without growers having to apply compost. In the presence of organic matter, plants will expand their root systems.

Founder Daniel Morash said initial field trials on strawberry and almond crops have supported the data. CSS has agreements in place with several university, university extension and industry researchers including Edwin Lewis of the University of California, Davis, and UC Cooperative Extension agents in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Yolo and Kern counties.

Daniel Holden of Holden Research & Development confirmed the data, noting that in its tests H2H increased yield between 25 percent and 30 percent in strawberries as well as lowering water demand. He conducted four field trials with fresh-market strawberries.

Trails show the product increased organic matter in almonds by 44 percent.

"We were looking at a water deficit irrigation management program that we may experience with the California drought," Holden said.

His company was a finalist in the Thrive Accelerator program of the Salinas-based Steinbeck Innovation Cluster, and was mentored by Lorri Koster, chief executive of Mann Packing in Salinas, who is teaching Morash how to pitch to growers instead of investors. Morash is a former investment banker.

"They can license the technology," Koster said. "Green waste is everywhere, not just in California. The attraction to growers would be increased yield, less water requirements and the reduction of the use of nitrate fertilizers. For processors, it could provide a more viable use of the culls or green waste from our processing facilities that is currently being fed to livestock."

The reduction in nitrate fertilizers is key because contamination from nitrogen fertilizers is a major problem for groundwater in the Salinas Valley. Excessive nitrates in water can cause a host of problems, including the potentially fatal "blue baby syndrome" that interferes with an infant's ability to carry oxygen.

But it's yield that most directly affects growers' profits. As more produce is harvested per acre, revenue rises by roughly the same percentage. When Vincent Barajas applied H2H to his Santa Maria lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower crops, he logged a 33 percent increase in yield, he said.

Source: The Californian

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• Fertilizers
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