DARWIN might seem a far-flung address for a Swan Hill Chemicals branch but since Brett Eade joined the team there in November last year his clients have been doing more than just making hay while the sun shines.
So to speak.
Because while it is not necessarily hay, it certainly is making mangoes while the sun shines as this one-man merchandising machine gets an exclusive rage of Agro-K products to his clients.
Originally the Gold Coast based national manager for the US foliar plant nutrition and biological product development enterprise, Mr Eade has come out of retirement to reenergise agriculture in the Top End.
“I originally moved to Darwin because this is where my family had become based but once I got here, I found I had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with,” Mr Eade explained.
“And at the same time Gary Jeans (who owns Swan Hill Chemicals) was looking for an agronomist here so we were able to help solve each other’s problems,” he added.
“Which is when I also recommended to him, we get the Agro-K products back into the local market – we had been putting them in here years ago but there had been a break, and there is a new generation of growers here now.”
The NT mango industry stretches from areas around Darwin to as far southeast at Katherine, 300-plus kilometres away.
And it has undergone a massive expansion in recent years, which Mr Eade said has enabled him to “rekindle’ the market.
“There are a lot of new people in the mango business now, with some big operations, and the Agro-K products are a perfect match for them,” he said.
Products which include VIGOR-CAL, SYSSTEM-CAL, SYMBEX, SYMSPRAY and KDL.
Mr Made said Agro-K has been a pioneer of sustainable agriculture and integrated pest management. It is internationally recognised as perhaps the oldest and most experienced company in the development of biological alternatives for the horticultural, field crop, and livestock industries.
From inception, Agro-K research has focused on solving plant and animal problems with nutrition and disease.
“Agro-K products evolve from a comprehensive understanding of plant physiology,” he added.
“This basis in the science of cellular-level plant development means our products are fine-tuned to help crops receive the nutrients they need precisely when that need peaks.
“Agro-K products also are based in extensive knowledge of the interactions – positive or negative for plant development – of various chemistries within distinct crops and their soil environment.
“Data from decades of trials by leading universities, crop consultants, cooperators, and high-level producers have proven the sound science, efficacy, and value of Agro-K technologies for improving soils and for the rapid-uptake and bio-availability of nutrients.”
He said Agro-K soil conditioning and foliar plant nutrition technologies can ensure crops are growing in balanced, complex microbial soils and then receive the minerals needed for more robust root growth, more effective leaf area development, and stronger stalks or trunks to support more efficient vascular systems.
Which he said are the foundations for more effective nutrient uptake, photosynthesis, and translocation of minerals, water, and other building blocks of healthy plants.
“These plants – whether row crops, vegetables, tree fruit, nuts, or vines – are better able to tolerate the inevitable stresses of the growing season to produce more abundant, higher-quality harvests,” he added.
“In any crop, the Agro-K systemic, season-long approach to nutrient enrichment can help producers meet their objectives – longer/thicker roots, more uniform stands, transplant hardiness, earliness, disease resistance, faster bearing, long-term orchard and field sustainability, improved fruit set, desired fruit structure, profitable sizing, great texture with more flavour, the right colour, better pack-out and travel, longer shelf-life and greater consumer confidence.
“After more than five years out of the business, my first season back we brought in two shiploads of product, but with the results we have been achieving people have been sitting up and taking a lot of notice.
“This coming season I reckon that will be bringing in at least four shiploads, and probably more, and once this harvest is finished in a few more weeks I suspect we will be sitting down with a lot more people now they are seeing what these products can do.”
