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Our Recommendations for Tomato

• Lono – For Improved Yield

  Lono is Levity’s flagship nitrogen fertilizer which greatly improves fruit number and size and promotes good root growth. Lono provides tomatoes with ‘Stabilized Amine Nitrogen’ which focuses growth on fruit development rather than vegetative growth.

• Albina – For Improved Setting & Reduced Blossom End Rot

  Albina is Levity’s highly efficient calcium fertilizer which improves fruit set, fruit firmness and reduces susceptibility to blossom end rot and other physiological disorders. Conventional calcium fertilizers give erratic results because fruit are not always able to absorb calcium, making applications inefficient. Albina uses Levity’s special LoCal technology to make it easy for fruit to absorb.

• Indra – For Stress Protection & Improved Colour

  Indra improves growth and quality of tomato crops by helping them cope with stress caused by heat, cold, salinity, drought and high UV light. Indra helps crops cope with stress events, preserving yield and lifting quality.

• Sulis – For Improved Colour, Brix & Post Harvest Shelf Life

  Sulis is Levity’s fertilizer which helps fruit to build maturity (colour and brix). Sulis maximizes the function of the enzymes responsible for maturity in cherries and results in better colour and brix, meaning that farmers can harvest earlier.

• Damu – For Bigger Fruit

  Damu works by helping plants move photosynthates from the leaves where they are made to the fruit. This helps improve size of tomatoes ahead of picking.

• Zeme – For Stronger, Healthier crops.

  Zeme is Levity’s unique silicon fertilizer which strengthens the crop and making it more resilient against pests, diseases and stress and improving post-harvest shelf life. Zeme uses Levity’s SiX chemistry which dramatically improves silicon uptake and distribution allowing low applications and better results.

Lono

Feeding a tomato crop is important but nitrogen can make plants grow too vegetative, leading to poor and inconsistent establishment which follows through to harvest with inconsistent size, quality and maturity.

The majority of nitrogen applied to crops gets taken up in the nitrate form (regardless of what form it is applied as) due to instability in the environment. Nitrate nitrogen is processed in the leaf and leads to production of the growth hormone auxin. High auxin levels in plants make them apical dominant, meaning that as crops receive more N (nitrate) they become progressively more vegetative.

Unlike nitrates, the amine form of nitrogen is processed in roots and leads to the production of a different growth hormone – cytokinin. Amine nitrogen encourages more investment in reproductive growth and rooting. This is a more desirable type of growth for processing tomato crops as it gives good roots, more even establishment, and better and more even fruit production.

Unfortunately, due to the rapid conversion on amine to nitrate in soils this better growth habit is hard to achieve in practice.

Lono combines amine N with other nutrients and holds amine N in the form it is applied – giving more fruit development and less vegetative growth.

Here we present two graphs from experiments on determinate tomato plants. The first graph shows how conventional nitrogen sources (urea, calcium nitrate and ammonium nitrate) generate rapid shoot growth, whereas the same amount of nitrogen supplied using Lono (Levity’s LimiN technology) gave slower shoot growth.

If a plant is growing in one place it is not growing in another, by taking care of nitrogen inputs we can focus growth in the right place to gain yield.

 To give good root growth and better growth habit apply Lono at 5 litres per hectare, commencing at transplanting and making regular applications at 3-4 week intervals. This will keep roots actively growing, encourage a good growth habit, and ensure the plant focuses on fruit production.

Albina

To get even flower set and to reduce blossom end rot it is important to get good calcium levels in the fruit but throwing large volumes of calcium at the crop is an ineffective way to achieve this.

Calcium absorption in plant cells is linked to ‘polar auxin transport’ therefore parts of plants high in auxin absorb calcium easily (if available) and parts of plants low in auxin absorb calcium sparingly (no matter how much is supplied).

In common with most crops, tomatoes struggle to get good calcium levels in the fruit. This is due to the fruit being a low auxin tissue and therefore a poor sink for calcium. When the fruit is young and small (<2mm) it is in the cell division stage where the new cells that will become the fruit are being created and at this point auxin levels are good, however as the fruit starts to increase in size cell division is no longer occurring the cells are instead expanding and auxin levels are lower. This means as fruit increase in size the ability to absorb calcium decreases.

To get even flower set (vital for getting the crop even at harvest), and to reduce blossom end rot it is important to apply calcium between flowering and 2-3 mm fruit size. This is when new cells that form the fruit are formed, and applications are more effective in this window.

For best results crops will benefit from use of products containing LoCal technology such as Levity’s Albina. LoCal improves calcium absorption in low auxin parts of plants and can be used to get calcium into fruit where the natural ability to absorb is low.

 To improve fruit calcium levels and give even fruit set use Albina at 1 litre per hectare at flowering. Repeat at two weeks intervals from commencement of flowering until harvest finishes. This will be more effective than higher volume and more frequent applications of standard formulations.

Indra

Indra is a product that improves growth and quality of crops by helping them cope with stress caused by heat, cold, salinity, drought and high UV. All these stresses cause crops to produce toxins (ROS) that damage cells, reducing growth and increasing susceptibility to diseases.

Indra works by stimulating the plants own antioxidant production and by supplying the nutrients needed make this possibly. Indra is proven to protect crops against a wide variety of stresses and can improve yield and reduce susceptibility to disease when used in a programme.

Studies undertaken at Lancaster University (UK) demonstrate that Indra improves photosynthesis when tomatoes are grown using saline water or under drought stress – reversing yield losses.

Sulis

Sulis builds maturity (colour and brix) in fruit crops. It works by supplying molybdenum and boron in a special formulation that helps the fruit maximise the function of the enzymes responsible for maturation, building better levels of colour and brix to allow earlier picking.

The processes of maturation require molybdenum to manufacture ABA and boron to transport sugars, but as molybdenum does not produce visible deficiency symptoms, the enzymes are often not adequately functioning, leading to a slow build of colour and sugars. The Blush technology that powers Sulis stimulates the plant’s natural process of maturity, whilst ensuring these key nutrients in the process are available.

The special formulation of Sulis helps fruit build better levels of colour and brix to allow earlier picking. It promotes the processes of maturation that are normally triggered by the hormone ABA. Importantly, Sulis does this without causing a spike in ethylene, which can retard shelf life and create quality problems.

Sulis also contains cell wall stabilisers, so that whilst colour and sugars build, the developing fruit can also maintain firmness. Normally, there is a trade-off between colour and sugar formation and softening, Sulis is designed to manage this process so that farmers can get the taste they need whilst still picking fruit that stays firm in storage.

Damu

Boron has a role to play in preventing rapid vegetative growth reducing tuber development, and in improving bulking via improved carbohydrate transfer to tubers. Damu is a unique formula developed by Levity Crop Science, proven to improve fruit size in tomato crops.

Boric acid, the main form in which plants take up boron from soils is not phloem mobile, it is taken up and moved passively upwards through the plant with water accumulating mainly in leaves. Tomatoes easily move boron from soil to leaves in this way but find it difficult to move from leaf to fruit.

To develop fruit tomato plants move sucrose from photosynthesising leaves (where it is created), to the fruit where it is stored as soluble solids. Boron plays a role in this movement of photosynthates from leaves to roots and so has a key influence on fruit bulking.

During fruit fill tomatoes translocate sucrose from leaves to tubers using bis-sucrose-borate, a phloem mobile complex formed between boron and sucrose.

Damu helps to facilitate bulking by improving translocation of sugars to fruit to build soluble soilds. Damu applied during bulking supplies the Boron needed to fuel carbohydrate translocation alongside Levity’s proprietary stimulant ‘Catalyst’ which stimulates the speed and intensity of the process.

For best results apply 2L/Ha at each flowering period.

Zeme

Silicon is a nutrient that plays an important role in cell strength and in plant growth and development. However Silicon is poorly mobile in plants and when conventional silicon is applied to crops it binds locally after application and is not available to the plant for metabolic activity.

Zeme Levity’s Si-X technology, a unique chemistry that aids active transport of silicon by crops. Zeme helps protect tomato crops against damage from stress, giving stronger and more resilient leaves, stems and fruit. It can be used at low rates and helps strengthen the whole plant.

Because Zeme is better distributed through the plant than conventional silicon fertilisers, it is used less frequently and at a lower rate. The whole plant is toughened which can help make the plant more robust and less prone to disease infections.