STRONGSOIL Lab and Field Trials Show Promising Results Who We Are
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Chonex is a soil health company dedicated to helping farmers get the most from their farms now and into the future. With rising fertilizer costs, it gets harder every year. STRONGSOIL is a biological solution that makes soil more productive so you can achieve higher yields and reduce your fertilizer costs. Higher Yield with Reduced Inputs At Chonex, we were busy in 2021 testing our product, STRONGSOIL, in the lab and in the field. The results are coming in and we think growers are going to like what they see: increased yields while reducing the amount of fertilizer used. In the Lab Sofia Andreola, Ph.D. is our Chief Technology Officer who is leading Research and Development and conducting the lab trials and field
Sofia Andreola, Ph.D. in the greenhouse with sorghum lab trial 62
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
trials. Last year she came from working in her home country, Argentina, and began splitting her time between IFDC and the Hudson Alpha campus in Huntsville, Alabama. In the lab, her team has tested two crops—sorghum and tomatoes—at five input rates (no inputs; 100% synthetic fertilizer; 100% STRONGSOIL; 50% synthetic fertilizer; and 50% synthetic fertilizer in combination with STRONGSOIL) under two growing conditions—standard irrigation and reduced irrigation (drought conditions) -- to see which perform best. What we are seeing is that adding STRONGSOIL improves five key areas: 1. Root Establishment – STRONGSOIL improves nutrient uptake by populating plant roots which promotes higher numbers of root tips and overall root mass, in turn enhancing nutrient acquisition.