By David Maxwell, sales director, QLF Agronomy
The welcome addition of a family-owned distillery at the site where QLF Agronomy products are manufactured not only gave us a healthy supply of rum, but we have also been able to ‘boost’ our BOOST with added fulvic acid as a byproduct from the distilling process.
Distinct Distillers is co-located with the Landowner, Quality Liquid Feeds and QLF Agronomy manufacturing site. It currently produces several white and dark rums using the same raw material that goes into our QLF Agronomy products – molasses.
The fermentation of molasses creates a lot of nutrients alongside the alcohol, and the distillation kills off any live yeast. What’s left at the end of the process is a distillate that goes to the other side of our manufacturing site for us to utilise in our QLF Agronomy products. This distillate has a high concentration of fulvic acid, which is ideal for adding to our L-CBF BOOST, TL17, TL30 and Amino 15 products.
It’s a win-win. The distillery has a willing customer for what would otherwise be waste, and farmers using QLF Agronomy products benefit from additional fulvic acid for their crops. This is on top of the existing fulvic acid in our molasses-based fertilisers.
With a 1,000L IBC of straight fulvic acid costing around £3,000, what we include from the distillery byproduct adds considerable value to a farmer.
Fulvic acid is a natural organic substance that improves soil health in many ways. Its importance to plant health comes from its open carbon structure and low molecular weight. It is an excellent chelating agent, meaning it can bind to nutrients and make them more available to the plant.
Fulvic acid enhances nutrient uptake by increasing the permeability of plant cell membranes. This results in improved nutrient absorption and utilisation by plants.
Alongside nutrient uptake, the other benefit of including fulvic acid with nitrogen is how it aids the conversion of urea into amino acids by providing a carbon source.
If a farmer applies foliar urea, it will also help uptake into the plant by neutralising the charge on the leaf surface. This stops urea, a positively charged cation, from binding to the surface and not being absorbed.
The molasses that form the basis of our products has similar benefits to plant health, but fulvic acid works in a complementary way.
Fulvic acid’s sister compound is humic acid, which is also becoming an increasingly popular input. It tends to go on the soil rather than the leaf. However, there’s evidence on grassland that humic acid is a more effective foliar feed than fulvic acid.
We don’t get any humic acid from the distillate. L-CBF BOOST already contains humates, the solid form of humic acid. This makes it an exceptionally rounded foliar feed.
Distinct Distillers is about to increase production, giving us access to even more fulvic acid. We are considering if we can use this to introduce a range of specific foliar fertilisers with higher concentrations of fulvic acid. For the moment, farmers can benefit from the flexibility that a product like L-CBF BOOST gives them when they apply it to the soil or leaf.
QLF Agronomy issues a guide to carbon fertilisers
A new technical guide aimed at helping growers understand the benefits of incorporating carbon-based fertiliser in their nutrition programmes has been created by QLF agronomy.
With so much focus in the last 50 years on nitrogen and the nitrogen cycle, the importance of carbon and the carbon cycle has been neglected. The guide explains how maintaining a healthy carbon-to-nitrogen balance helps soil microbes thrive, improves nutrient use efficiency and increases yields.
Contained within is trial data, recommendations for L-CBF BOOST, grower case studies and frequently asked questions. Farmers and advisors who download and read it are entitled to 2 BASIS and 2 NRoSO points.
Distinct Distillers: the drinks company improving soil health
Following a successful career in the drinks industry, Distinct Distillers founder Hannah Boon decided to set out on her own. She set up Distinct Distillers as a separate business from her family’s Landowner Group but linked through the same infrastructure.
They produce dark and light rums and plan to begin producing whiskey soon. The spirits are cask-conditioned underground using an old World War Two aviation fuel bunker. This provides a consistent temperature and humidity, which are ideal conditions for conditioning spirits.
The firm also has a licence to sell its excess ethanol for industrial purposes. They have another on-site customer with the Landowner business, which can use it for its screenwash.
10% off the Distinct Distiller online shop
Direct Driller readers can get a 10% discount on a bottle of Distinct Distiller rum by using the code DIRECTDRILLER10 at the checkout on the Distinct Distiller website.
https://www.distinctdistillers.co.uk/collections
