Rain is a blessing during seeding, yet a curse around harvest time.
As crops begin to dry out, they lose their natural ability to repel water and start to act like a sponge, absorbing rain, and dew events. This can lead to pod shatter, sprouting grain, staining, wrinkling, loss of seed and downgrading of seed quality.
Enviroshield from Agspec is a unique film-forming polymer formulation extracted from natural plant materials that repels water from the pods when applied to a crop pre-harvest.
Agspec Business manager Philip Lintern said Enviroshield allows moisture movement from within the pods, allowing the crop to dry pre-harvest, while at the same time reducing the intrusion of extraneous moisture back into the pod due to rain or dew.
This results in a gentle uniform ripening without additional stress and problems rain can induce before harvest.
“Canola and other pod crops can also have mature and immature pods at the same time, resulting in mature pods being ready for harvest whilst immature pods are still developing, making the timing for harvest difficult,” Mr Lintern said.
“Enviroshield will assist the early pods to ‘hold on’ resulting in a more even harvest with reduced loss of seed and fewer immature seeds being harvested.
“Enviroshield forms a unique elastic semi-permeable film over pods and heads when applied at the beginning of maturity.
“This film acts like the cuticle that has degraded, allowing moisture to pass out through the semi-permeable membrane but not in. The continued movement of water out allows the crop to dry to the required moisture levels for harvest while protecting it from water entry, reducing splitting/shattering and maintaining seed quality.”
Mr Lintern said the Enviroshield membrane also allows the free flow of gasses both in and out. Enviroshield can be applied by ground or air and must be applied with maximum water volume where possible for optimum pod coverage and performance.
“Enviroshield is not a magic bullet; losses will still occur with extreme events like hail, excessive droplets or very strong winds,” Mr Lintern said.
“But where the pre-harvest conditions are expected to be ‘wet and wild’, the application of Enviroshield will provide huge assistance in repelling water when the crop is no longer able to. As a result, this dramatically reduces pod shatter, pod drop, sprouting and seed damage.”
Mr Lintern said Enviroshield is the ideal harvest aid for canola but is also suitable in lentils to reduce pod drop, pod shattering and moisture damage.
In addition, Enviroshield is ideal for use in cereals to prevent sprouting grain if rain is expected close to harvest.
He said resellers should encourage growers to shield their crops this summer with an application of Enviroshield.
Enviroshield Benefits:
• Uniform harvest: Windrowing a canola crop terminates the crop, often before all pods have reached full maturity. Enviroshield allows for the cropto stand until fully ripe
• Reduced shatter:By reducing water entry and damage, pod shatter is minimised, optimising yield
• Seed development: Enviroshield allows the crop to evenly mature ensuring full seed development of later paddocks and improving harvest flexibility
• Seed quality: By repelling water, Enviroshield minimises seed damage from moisture events pre-harvest
• Oil development: The ability to allow canola crops to fully develop results in increased oil development. Windrowing an uneven ripening crop dramatically impacts oil content
• Sprouting: Minimising water entry into the pods reduces the risk of sprouting before harvest, thereby improving overall quality.
