What are the effects of silicon fertilizer? A rundown of its ten major functions in agriculture
Silicon fertilizer is an excellent quality fertilizer, health fertilizer and plant-regulating fertilizer, a new type of multifunctional fertilizer that other chemical fertilizers cannot match. Silicon fertilizer can serve as a fertilizer, providing nutrients, and can also be used as a soil conditioner to improve the soil. In addition, it also has disease-prevention, pest-prevention and detoxifying effects. With its outstanding advantages of being non-toxic, odorless, non-deteriorating, non-leaching and pollution-free, it will become a highly efficient and high-quality fertilizer for developing green ecological agriculture.
The ten major functions of silicon fertilizer in agriculture
1. Silicon is an important nutrient element in the composition of plants, and has been listed by the international soil community as the fourth major element after nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
2. Silicon fertilizer helps improve crop photosynthesis and chlorophyll content, makes stems and leaves upright, and promotes the accumulation of organic matter.
3. Silicon fertilizer can increase the mechanical strength of crop stems, improve lodging resistance by more than 85%, make stems upright, and facilitate dense planting.
4. Silicon fertilizer can improve crop resistance to pests and diseases and reduce the occurrence of various pests and diseases. After crops absorb silicon, silicified cells can form within the plant, thickening the cell walls of the stem and leaf surface and increasing the cuticle layer, forming a solid protective layer that makes it difficult for insects to bite through and hard for pathogens to invade. (This is especially true for enhanced resistance to rice blast, sheath blight, bacterial leaf blight, stem rot, seedling rot, leaf spot, smut, sclerotinia, rust, powdery mildew, black spot, downy mildew, gray mold, bacterial wilt, fusarium wilt, root rot, and pests such as stem borers, rice planthoppers, aphids, cotton bollworms, stemborers, whiteflies, root-knot nematodes and others.)
5. Silicon fertilizer can enhance the aeration inside crop plants, prevent root rot and premature aging, and plays an important role in controlling rice root rot.
6. Silicon fertilizer can effectively regulate the opening and closing of leaf stomata and inhibit water transpiration, enhancing crops' resistance to drought, dry hot winds, cold and low temperatures.
7. Silicon fertilizer can enhance the pollen vitality of melon and fruit crops. Applying silicon fertilizer during the flowering period can significantly increase the fruit-setting rate.
8. Silicon fertilizer can reduce the fixation of phosphate fertilizer in the soil, activate phosphorus in the soil and promote the root system's absorption of phosphorus, improving the utilization rate of phosphate fertilizer. It strengthens the absorption and utilization of calcium and magnesium, and can effectively regulate crops' balanced absorption of different nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which is why it is called a “plant-regulating fertilizer”.
9. Silicon fertilizer is a health fertilizer. It can activate beneficial microorganisms, improve the soil, correct soil acidity, increase soil base saturation, promote the decomposition of organic fertilizer, inhibit soil pathogens, resist continuous cropping obstacles and reduce heavy metal pollution.
10. Silicon fertilizer is a quality fertilizer. It can significantly improve the quality of agricultural products, effectively prevent fruit cracking, fruit shrinkage and deformed fruit, increase fruit firmness, make fruit shape regular, coloring good and taste excellent, with good marketability, tolerance to storage and transportation, and an extended fresh-keeping period.