Rival’s trial gives SustaiN its stamp of approval

Media release
12 November 2008

Rival’s trial gives SustaiN its stamp of approval

Summit Quinphos has received an unexpected endorsement of its claims about its coated urea product SustaiN from a trial funded by one of its rivals.

Dr Jamie Blennerhassett, Technical Services Manager at SQ, says Ravensdown commissioned an independent trial of SustaiN to test the validity of SQ’s claims about the product. Not surprisingly, the trial ended up adding to the weight of scientific evidence in support of SustaiN.

“The findings were presented at the recent Grasslands Conference by Crop and Food Research, who conducted the trial,” said Dr Blennerhassett.

“The trial was presented in a manner that did its best to play down the benefits of SustaiN, but the data reveals some very favourable results for the product, which are in line with our own research.

“Ironically, in an attempt to publish a trial to discredit our product claims, Ravensdown has unwittingly provided us with some very encouraging independent trial work.”

The findings were presented as an analysis of total growth measured over 83 to 182 days, rather than as an analysis of fertiliser response. Over such a period, background growth diminishes the effect of fertiliser and makes it harder to distinguish between fertiliser treatment effects, especially at lower rates.

“The focus should be on N response, rather than total growth. This is the industry standard approach for assessing N fertilisers, and this trial report is at odds with how N fertiliser is usually talked about – how much dry matter each kg produces per hectare.”

“The 25kg application response would have been finished in 20-40 days, and that would be the best time to analyse the difference, not after such an extended period. After all, farmers are paying for the response (they get the background growth for free), and this is the only part that should be analysed.”

Dr Blennerhassett said the proof was plain to see when you let the numbers do the talking.

“SustaiN averaged higher response efficiencies than urea at every rate throughout the trial. These numbers are very much in line with all of the work SQ has done either in-house or independently, and is a great demonstration of the superb benefits that SustaiN provides over using standard urea.

“On average, SustaiN increased N responses by 38 percent compared to urea. At a break even increase of 4 percent, farmers who use SustaiN are coming out well on top of those using urea.”

ENDS

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