The future in nutrient delivery
Description
AGROLOGY’s aim with SmartFlow® Technology, is to bring its extensive formulation know-how into the Plant Nutrition sector.
Leveraging decades of pesticide formulation expertise and of experience in plant nutrition product development, SmartFlow® Technology allows the creation of formulations with enhanced quality and performance parameters.
Quality Parameters
Due to the lack of strict controls in fertilizer formulation, unlike in plant protection products, the plant nutrition sector is flooded with unstable products, featuring short shelf life and low suspensibility, causing issues with both stock management and efficacy.
SmartFlow® Technology seeks to address this issue, through the use of:
• A three-step formulation process
• High-grade co-formulants
• Advanced formulation know-how
SmartFlow® Technology results in significant improvements to the product’s:
• Suspensibility
• Viscosity
• Spontaneity of Dispersion
• pH
• Particle Size
A demonstration of the enhanced suspensibility is shown in the video below, while a comparison of the physicochemical properties of Zinplex®, a SmartFlow® product, versus analogous products in the market is shown in Table 1.
| SmartFlow® Formulation Comparison Chart | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Specialty | Commodity |
Pesticide |
|||
| Product |
AGROLOGY |
Sample 1 | Sample 2 | Sample 3 | Sample 4 | |
| Density | 1,715gr/cm3 | 1,730 gr/cm3 | 1,696 gr/cm3 | 1,734 gr/cm3 | 1,837 gr/cm3 | – |
| pH (product) | 8,45 | 9,16 | 9,45 | 9,03 | 9,80 | – |
| Viscosity | 900 cP | 1160 cP | 1600 cP | 1230 cP | 1350 cP | – |
| Spontaneity of dispersion |
97,32% | 79,16% | 78,41% | 84,50% | 84,80% | >80% |
| Suspensibility | 94,85% | 5,82% | 8,01% | 3,97% | 23,30% | >90% |
Table 1: The table above shows comparison of formulation characteristics between Zinplex® and other competitive brands as well as Pesticide Minimum FAO Specs. In each measurement, green is used to denote best in class and red the worst in class.
Performance Parameters
The improvement is the product’s quality parameters by SmartFlow® Technology directly leads to an increase in efficacy, by improving:
• Rate of uptake
• Speed of uptake
• Crop coverage
• Spray mixture homogeneity
• Tank Mix profile
According to university research (see here the list of universities cooperating with AGROLOGY) suspension concentrates formulated with SmartFlow® Technology showcase maximum uptake within two hours after application and up to 5 times greater uptake compared to competitive products with organic or EDTA chelation (Fig. 1).
Benefits
The improvements SmartFlow® nutrient delivery system bring to both product quality and product performance parameters result in significant advantages for both organizations and growers.
Organization-Level Benefits:
1. Logistics & warehousing cost-effectiveness
2. Reduced losses from:
• Product recall
• Phytotoxicity issues
3. Increased differentiation due to product best-in-class characteristics
Farmer-Level Benefits:
1. Increased spray efficacy
2. Fast results
3. Lowest cost per kg of micronutrients delivered in the plant
4. Greater ease of use
5. Easier to Tank Mix
6. Rain-safe
7. Reduced chance of phytotoxicity