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After conducting several trials and achieving great results, Western Harvesting of King City, CA, has greatly expanded its use of Chamae liquid fertilizer, a product registered for use on both organic and conventional fruits and vegetables.
“We started using it last year,” said Tim McAfee, one of the principals in the company. “We have seen a significant increase in yields and it also improved the color and texture of the leafy greens and tender leaf items that we are using it on.”
Product with Chamae, right
McAfee said the company usually takes a much more measured approach to increasing the use of a new crop input as most of them just don’t deliver on their promise. “But the first year we noticed a big difference,” he said. “We talked about it and are going full bore this year. David (Gill, who is also one of the principals in the operation) jumped in with both feet.”
The trials were on conventional crops, but McAfee said the expanded use will include the company’s organic production of the tender leaf items. He said they are also conducting more trials on Chamae’s effectiveness with other items such as iceberg lettuce and other cruciferous crops. McAfee said if the yield increase can be maintained that’s a very significant development for the production company. “We can use less acreage to achieve the same results, which gives us many more options in our crop rotation patterns.”
Crops with Chamae
Christopher Rogers, CEO of Chamae USA, explained that the firm’s signature product is a liquid bio-activator that was introduced in Europe several years ago after a dozen years of testing. The sales of the product have taken off in the past year more than doubling. “Worldwide, we have close to a million acres using Chamae in Europe, Chile, New Zealand, Latin America, Colombia, Asia…we have had great acceptance,” he said.
Christopher Rogers (far left), CEO, Chamae USA
Usage of Chamae in the United States is up to 20,000 acres. Rogers said many growers are still in the trialing stage but getting results similar to Western Harvesting and starting to increase their orders. He rattled off the names of several large companies with a diverse set of crops that have successfully trialed Chamae, adding that he expects the fertilizer will be used on 100,000 acres in the United States within the next year.
The liquid fertilizer was developed in Spain by a biochemist who was playing around with different components. Chamae is essentially a base of ground up pepper plants. The resulting formulation acts as a catalyst spurring plant growth by enabling the plant to better utilize the nutrients within the soil and stimulating the microrganisms in the dirt. Ultimately, the soil improves and the plants are healthier. It is effective in all eco-systems but is particularly beneficial to poor soil conditions and fields with high salinity.
Graphic courtesy of Chamae
McAfee said you can actually see the improvement manifest itself in the darker color of the spinach leaves and the other tender leaf items.
Rogers said Chamae allows an organic grower to reduce his use of other inputs by about 50 percent. He said the product has great utilization for the organic vegetable industry as growers have fewer options in their tool box. He called Chamae a “big plus” for organic growers. “We have documented increased yields of 20-30 percent for most of the vegetables it has been trialed on.”
The Chamae USA executive noted that the product is sold directly to growers with his division importing and distributing Chamae in the USA, Canada, Mexico and select countries in Central and South America. Rogers said Chama has shown an outstanding response in fruit trees, olive groves and vineyards due to the fast bio-activation in large roots.
