From the ease of being smashed on toast or as guacamole with a Mexican feast, to being a possible brain fuel for children and even being an adult aphrodisiac, perhaps because the origin of its name stems from the Aztec word for testicle, the avocado has become a worldwide agricultural phenomenon in a historically short period of time.
From its place as a European oddity, regarded as a peculiar conversation piece more than a culinary delight, the avocado industry now respects that this versatile fruit requires continued investment and careful management to ensure its commercialization continues to grow and continues to offer opportunities for growers to maximise profit for their product.
Agspec Australia General Manager, Jonathan Lillecrapp, has identified the consumption of avocados in particular as being at record levels in Australia and believes that the potential for the industry to set record production levels to meet both local and export demands is a challenge that can be achieved with the support of Agspec fertilizer products such as Atlantik and BlueSpear.
“Avocados have such a huge popularity and Agspec has developed a range of fertilizers ideal for the growth of avocado fruit in a range of environments,” Mr Lillecrapp said.
“Agspec has been a key distributor of fertilizers and crop protection products for nearly fifteen years and Atlantik and BlueSpear are great examples of products we have developed to accommodate the growth of agricultural industries that historically are still in their early days.”
While Atlantik has the credentials of being a naturally resourced, hand harvested seaweed from the west coast of Ireland, delivering multiple proven biological benefits to plants, it is the Agspec research program that has driven the success of this unique seaweed fertilizer that is proving to be so compatible with avocados.
When Atlantik is sprayed on avocados a number of benefits have been identified by growers and Agspec’s Northern Queensland Manager, Frank Munoz, has been keen to promote these benefits.
“It’s a low cost per hectare product in comparison to other seaweed formulations and beyond our experience indicating Atlantik’s success at improving anti-stress, plant strength and growth it’s the direct feedback from growers, confirming great quality and yields, that is particularly pleasing for us. By spraying Atlantik you stimulate the root flush, so the tree can take in more water and nutrient. It also helps the tree hold more fruit if you have a heavy fruit load” he said.
Currently distributed across 36 countries and 4 continents, Atlantik is applied to a wide variety of tree crops. It can be applied year round to avocados because the avocado is a subtropical evergreen tree that is never dormant, however we recommend applying from the flowering stage. As a high quality and efficient root and foliar application, Atlantik’s concentrated formula has excellent crop safety, and is 100% biodegradable and 100% soluble in water.