K-Adriatica's KAMAB 26: Calcium also improves sales
In fruit growing, planning an appropriate fertilization plan is crucial to meet the needs of the crop and achieve optimal results in terms of crop quantity and quality. This principle also applies to actinidia cultivation, where the main objective is to create an adequate nutritional balance to ensure the profitability of the crop, especially when it comes to valuable products such as yellow kiwifruit. Defending the value of profitable productions is crucial to ensure the economic sustainability of the farm, and nutritional strategy plays a central role in this context. Focusing on Actinidia chinensis, one of the critical parameters is storage, and to ensure optimal shelf-life we start in the field by providing the plant with the correct calcium supply. In this context, K-Adriatica establishes itself as a leader with its nutritional solution KAMAB 26, designed to correct physiological disorders attributable to nutritional imbalances related to Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium, contributing to the preservation and optimization of product shelf-life.
Maria Rosaria Stile of K-Adriatica, Research and Development Manager of the Adriatica Group, relates: "When it comes to balanced nutrition for kiwifruit, calcium plays a critically important role and affects the shelf life of the product more than any other element. A deficiency of this nutrient can cause imbalances and pathophysiological problems, but proper management can lead to significant benefits. To address these physiological disorders resulting from nutritional imbalances, at K-Adriatica we have developed KAMAB 26, a foliar-applicable nutritional solution that can solve the nutritional problems underlying diseases caused by an imbalance between calcium, potassium and magnesium. K-Adriatica's KAMAB 26 makes it possible to rebalance the ratio of nutrients, particularly by limiting ammonium accumulation and its negative effects on the plant's nutritional balance. This leads to a tangible improvement in kiwifruit quality and, as a result, increased sales."
K-Adriatica's KAMAB 26 is a nutritional corrector that can be applied from vegetative restart to harvest, achieving different results depending on the phenological stage at which it is applied:
- in the vegetative resumption-pre-flowering stage, the application of KAMAB 26 can bring significant benefits to the leaf apparatus and promote more intense flowering with larger and more vigorous flowers. Leaves, therefore, will show a brighter and more lustrous appearance, while flower petals will be larger, clear signs of increased plant vitality that will result in higher production potential for the crop;
- in the post-allegation stage, when the fruit has the greatest need for calcium, the use of KAMAB 26 from K-Adriatica brings this valuable element rapidly, promoting its fixation in the cell walls (calcium pectate).
The special formulation of KAMAB 26 ensures fast assimilation and even distribution of calcium throughout the fruit, avoiding localization in specific parts, as is often the case with conventional fertilizers. This therefore not only improves fruit texture, but significantly reduces the occurrence of physiopathologies both in the field and after harvest, which are often caused not by the overall amount of calcium present, but by its uneven distribution throughout the fruit tissues.
The use of K-Adriatica's KAMAB 26 fertilizer is showing surprising results in kiwifruit cultivation, as highlighted by two experienced producers in the field. Davide Campoli, owner of a yellow-fleshed and green-fleshed kiwifruit farm spanning 50 hectares in the Pontine countryside, noted that K-Adriatica's KAMAB 26 application at pre-flowering improved the structure of the leaf system, increasing the production yield of the plants. However, the most surprising results were obtained with post-flowering treatments, which not only improved fruit firmness (as shown by penetrometer tests), but more importantly increased the commercial shelf-life of yellow kiwifruit.
Michele Cazzetta, another kiwifruit producer with land in Ginosa Marina (TA), also confirmed the benefits of using K-Adriatica's KAMAB 26: "The application of the KAMAB 26 nutritional solution in post-allegation has improved the shelf-life of the fruit, facilitating the management of the commercial campaign thanks to a longer shelf-life for yellow kiwifruit, whose more resistant characteristics have simplified storage operations in the warehouse and the subsequent manual and mechanical processing of the product."
Supporting from a nutritional point of view a production such as the yellow kiwi is certainly a useful strategy to defend the value of a fruit that is gaining more and more consensus among consumers: for example, the Italian kiwi industry is rapidly adapting to this trend. According to data provided by CSO Italy, in 2009, yellow-fleshed varieties accounted for only 5 percent of kiwi crops, but in the last crop year the 21 percent share was reached. At the same time, nutritional techniques developed for actinidia are progressing in parallel with this trend.
Choosing to use K-Adriatica's KAMAB 26 is an effective solution for farmers who wish to maximize the yield and quality of their yellow kiwi crops.