Plant nutrition courier | August 2025

This email newsletter is the notification of the just published Plant nutrition courier 2025-03 issue.

Subscribers received this issue on 05-08-2025.

Copper oxychloride is poorly soluble in water. The same applies to copper oxide and zinc oxide. Biosurfactant extracts from corn steep liquor can improve both the solubility and suspensibility of these salts. Spanish chemical engineers are exploring this residual stream as a source of cost-competitive adjuvants and formulation inerts. And recently other agri-food residual streams have also come into focus.
This issue of the Plant nutrition courier has six extra pages of news and insights into formulation research.

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Other formulation research news:
• Solid state encapsulation of active ingredients
• Melt suspension technique for low-melting active ingredients
• Some amine-based formulation inerts are a significant source of carcinogenic nitrosamine precursors
• Low risk of viroid spread with oils from citrus fruit peels
• Generation of surfactant-free oil-in-water nanoemulsions using nanopore membrane and ultrasound
• Assessing the viscosity inside oil droplets in nanoemulsions

Glucosinolates are antinutritional factors in oilseed rape meal used for animal feed. However, recent research shows that these sulphur-containing molecules do matter for seedlings growing on soils low in this plant nutrient.

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Other arable news:
• Adequate spring nitrogen supply is sufficient for winter barley production
• Spraying potassium against heat stress in wheat
• Molybdenum favours nitrate uptake by maize
• Winter wheat canopy absorbs ammonia emitted from soil surface
• Ammonium stimulates uptake of soil-applied selenium in maize
• Steel slag silicate fertiliser suppresses grain cracking in brewer’s rice
• Maize en sugar beet benefit differently from preceding cover crops

Tannic acid and other phenolic ligands can control the dissolution rate of urea. Such ligands can also be combined with metal ions to form so-called metal–phenolic networks, which can be used to encapsulate urea. Australian scientists used a one-step, solvent-free mechanochemical method to prepare a novel slow-release urea fertiliser.

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Other fertiliser news:
• Urea synthesis by ball milling ammonia water and carbon dioxide
• Mechanochemical synthesis of slow-release molybdenum-zinc fertilisers
• Slow-release molybdenum fertiliser
• Potassium tripolyphosphate suited as fertiliser
• Brushite is suitable as a phosphate fertiliser
• Siderophore-based zinc chelate

Machine learning can help to improve the interpretation of measured nutrient levels in leaf samples of horticultural crops. Recent research indicates that machine learning algorithms can offer a more accurate way to interpret nutrient data compared to human interpretation of tissue tests.

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• Spinach benefits from combination of boron and boron-complexing metabolites
• Preharvest boron spraying limits frost impact on broccoli quality
• Seed priming to enhance iodine content of tomato
• A little iodine increases lettuce yield

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Soil has no precipitated phosphate to solubilise. Hence, so-called phosphate solubilising microorganisms should have other ‘modes of action’ by which they may improve a crop’s phosphorus status, according to an Australian soil scientist.

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French formulators have developed a water dispersible granule formulation for sparingly water-soluble and insoluble copper salts. The choice of solvents and other formulation inerts contributes to the improved performance of the formulation. Copper is both an agrochemical active ingredient and a micronutrient. The formulation has been developed with use as a fungicide/bactericide in mind.

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Editor's pick of just published patent applications:
• Inclusion complex increases thermal stability of urease and nitrification inhibitors
• Use of polyphosphate to reduce caking of ammonium orthophosphate fertilisers
• New method to produce iron(II) gluconate in liquid or solid form
• Pyrazole derivatives that inhibit both urea hydrolysis and nitrification
• Aqueous urea fertiliser
• Extraction process for uranium, heavy metals and rare earths from phosphate sources
• Phosphate production process for phosphate sources with relatively high minor element ratio
• Biodegradable chitosan-based fertiliser coating with deep eutectic mixture plasticizer
• Suspo-emulsion containing micronutrient particles as a biodegradable fertiliser coating
• Biosurfactants as wetting agents to improve irrigation

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