Application of nitrogen fertilizers is a must to grow agricultural crops. In traditional farming practices, nitrogen fertilization leads to emission of ammonia, which is a strong greenhouse gas.
To study the benefits of Multicote™ controlled release fertilizer in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases related to nitrogen application, we set a trial in Haifa Group’s R&D greenhouse.
While the pots fertilized with conventional urea emitted about 15% of the applied nitrogen as gaseous ammonia, emissions from the Multicote™ pots were near zero.
Considering the amounts of nitrogen fertilizers applied to agricultural crops every year, and the fact that nitrous oxides and ammonia are 314 times more “effective” as greenhouse gasses than CO2, this reduction of emissions has a dramatic meaning.
Let’s look at the figures:
In Europe, about 20,000 hectares are fertilized with Multicote™ products*. Considering
two annual applications of 240kg of nitrogen per hectare, if these areas were fertilized with conventional nitrogen fertilizers, nitrogen emissions would have sum to
0.15X(240X2)X20,000=1440 tons of nitrogen.
This is equivalent to nearly 450,000 tons of CO2!
The annual emission of greenhouse gases from a car** is 4.6 tons of CO2, so the emissions spared by using Multicote™ products is equivalent to the removal of about 100,000 cars from the roads, in Europe only.
Thus, beside the benefits of optimal plant nutrition, labor saving and reduced fertilization rates, Multicote™ helps protecting our environment.
A source: https://www.haifa-group.com/
