Drought Stress: Your Crop Needs Calcium Now

After a cool start, the 2021 growing season is staring out hotter and drier than normal. High temperatures and transpiration rates are subjecting crops to unseasonal stress. What can be done to help crops overcome abiotic stresses?

Having adequate, readily available calcium is one of the most important factors in fighting heat and drought stress in rapidly growing crops. YaraLiva® Calcium Nitrate delivers fast-acting nitrate nitrogen along with 100% soluble calcium.

Why Calcium

Calcium is necessary for cell division and contributes, therefore, to early root and shoot growth. It is also integrally involved in cell wall formation which is necessary for the formation of firm fruit. One of the often overlooked roles of calcium in the plant is its function in the water status in plants which will become more and more important as drought conditions persist in the Western U.S.

Calcium helps to ameliorate water stress by

  • helping to ensure cell membrane integrity,
  • increasing root architecture (especially in the development of root hairs),
  • regulating water transport by increasing the water conductivity of roots due to an increase in sensitivity to abscisic acid-(ABA), a stress hormone released especially under drought stress, and
  • by regulating stomata opening and closing as a result of forwarding the ABA signal to the guard cells. In fact, calcium is the most common signal transduction element in all higher plant cells

 

Why YaraLiva is better than other sources of calcium

While many soils show adequate to high amounts of calcium, less than 0.05% of that calcium is soluble and available to plants. Moreover, most of the soil amendments such as ag lime, dolomite and gypsum commonly used to alter soil pH or structure do not contain soluble calcium and cannot be used by the plant nutritionally. By contrast, the calcium in YaraLiva products is plant available.

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Fertilizers like YaraLiva® UCAN-17™ or CN-9® have typically been used early in the spring to provide crops with readily available nitrate-N when soil and air temperatures are cool. However, the soluble calcium in YaraLiva CAN-17 and CN-9 also plays a key role in helping crops overcome environmental stresses such as heat, water, salinity and sodicity.

YaraLiva products need to be part of your season-long fertilizer program in order to reach optimal yield and quality. Contact your Yara representative today to find a YaraLiva distributor near you.

Learn more about calcium nitrate for potatoes

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Related article

Heat Stress: Let Calcium Help

 

Jimmy Ridgway
Regional Sales Manager

Idaho / Intermountain West

(208) 391-1650
Kacey Kiehn
Regional Sales Manager

Pacific Northwest

(509) 899-9975