Reduce Environmental Impact of Agri-Chemicals

Get More Benefit From Your Fertilizer

Throughout history the use of various chemicals has been an important part of farming.  Chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides are applied regularly on most farms.  However, more and more safety concerns are being raised about such wide usage of chemicals in the agricultural industry. 

One source of concern is for those who consume the produce.  Most chemicals sprayed onto fruits and vegetables are oil based so that rain won’t wash them off.  However, this also means that they are more difficult to wash off during post-harvest washing, and may find their way onto the kitchen table.    

The second concern is for the risks to farm workers who apply them.  Chemicals can enter the body through both breathing fumes and through skin contact.  Repeated exposure to toxic chemicals during the mixing and application process can lead to health issues over time. 

Thirdly, continued chemical applications can result in a buildup of unused chemicals in the soil.  If fertilizers are not in a form that plants can easily absorb, much of the fertilizer remains in the soil.  Plants only absorb a small percentage of the chemical fertilizers that are applied, which is costly to farmers and damaging to the environment.  The residual chemicals often leach down into groundwater or are washed away through runoff into streams and lakes.  If they reach lakes and streams, chemical residue causes the formation of excessive algae in the water.  All this algae reduces the amount of oxygen in the water available for fish, and reduces the amount of sunlight that can reach underwater plants.  These concerns make the efficiency of agri-chemical usage a key issue. 

The impact of chemical fertilizers is reduced if plants uptake more of the chemicals in the soil.   Plant roots use electromagnetic attraction (called Cation Exchange) to draw nutrient ions from the soil.  Quantum chemistry has now been used to develop a groundwater safe product known as BioWash Fertilizer Enhancer that increases the Cation Exchange Capacity in plants so that a higher percentage of the fertilizer is used by the plants.  A sister product, BioWash Soil Amendment, is applied directly to the soil and breaks down residual fertilizers, making nutrients in the soil more easily absorbed by the plant roots.

This increase in fertilizer efficiency not only reduces the probability of pollution from these chemicals, the increased nutrient intake by the plants also produces larger, healthier, plants which produce a larger crop.  Because the cost of BioWash is only about $6.00 per application per acre, the farmer can not only reduce his environmental impact, but he can also reap higher profits from the increase in crop production using fertilizer that would otherwise go unused and contribute to environmental problems.