29th Oct 2014 09:12
LONDON (Alliance News) - Sirius Minerals PLC Wednesday said it had got encouraging results from crop studies on chilli peppers and celery that showed the effectiveness of the polyhalite product it hopes to produce from the York Potash project.
The company is primarily focused on developing a potash mine near York, and is trying to get planning permission for the site.
In the meantime, it is conducting a global crop trial using the product it hopes to produce - the POLY 4 powder and granulated product - to prove it is an effective yield enhancer for cereal and vegetable crops.
In January it said POLY4 proved to be an effective and valuable fertiliser based on yield and quality performance on major crops such as corn, cotton, oilseed rape and wheat. In August it got "an outstanding set of results" in a trial on tomatoes, and last month it said POLY4 could increase cabbage yields after a trial in which it outperformed an existing potash fertiliser and a potassium alternative.
On Wednesday, it said the results from the celery and chilli pepper trials at the University of Warwick in the UK and Texas A&M in the US showed a 20% increase in celery potassium uptake levels over muriate of potash , leading to higher crop yield and higher fertilizer use efficiency.
It also said POLY4 outperformed muriate of potash as a straight fertilizer on celery dry weight by 22%, and on a K2O basis, POLY4 outperformed the muriate on chilli pepper yield by 10% and outperformed sulphate of potash, the potassium fertilizer, by an additional 3%.
In a separate trial on chilli pepper yield POLY4 outperformedmuriate of potash by 11% and sulphate of potash by 2% when these alternative potassium sources were fully balanced with POLY4 for sulphur, magnesium and calcium applications, it said.
"These encouraging results demonstrate POLY4's nutrient availability and efficiency of use from this preferred source of essentially chloride-free potassium," said Sirius Chief Executive Chris Fraser.
Sirius Minerals shares were flat at 12.00 pence early Wednesday.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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