Waterlogging and Wet Soils: Can Crops Recover?

Short Answer: YES

By supplying proper foliar nutrients, such as those in the TruPhos™ and Plant Activator™ Lines.

The Bad:

Lack of Oxygen:  Wet soil conditions reduce the amount of oxygen in the soils, which leads to anoxic conditions. In these conditions, roots cannot breath and root death occurs.  

Reduced Nutrient Availability: The reduced oxygen supplies in the soil cause microbes to scavenge any remaining oxygen.  They take oxygen from nutrient compounds in the soil, transforming the nutrients into unavailable forms.  Additionally, some nutrients are easily leached from soils during heavy rains, such as nitrogen.  Available nitrogen is also lost from the anaerobic activities of microbes in anoxic conditions, termed denitrification.   

Roots Stop Growing:  In excess moisture roots stop developing root hairs and can stop growing all together.  New root growth and root hairs are fundamental in nutrient uptake and without them the plants are unable to take up enough nutrition to survive.  

Plants Shut Down:  The above ground parts of the plant will quickly become nutrient deficient due to the negative impacts on the roots system.  This leads to reduced photosynthesis and energy transport, resulting in weak and unhealthy plants.  

Disease: Many pathogens thrive in wet soil conditions and easily infect weaken plants, ultimately resulting in plant death.  

The Good:

Plants can recover  

Plants have the ability to regenerate roots very quickly, but they need the nutrients and energy to do it.  Of critical importance are phosphorus (P), potassium (K), manganese (Mn), Zinc (Zn) and of course nitrogen (N).  These nutrients will enable plants to start developing new roots and mining the soil for the additional nutrients they need to produce a yield.   

The best thing you can do for a plant recovering from excess water is to supply the nutrients needed for root recovery.

The Solution:

The best thing you can do for a plant recovering from excess water is to supply nutrients and technology to improve conditions for growth such, such as the CMM™ technology in ManZinPhos Max Plus™. Enhancing abiotic stress tolerance with ACE™ technology in Alexin® can help crops better withstand less favourable conditions. Finally, the EBN™ technology combined with the slow-release nitrogen in N-Finity™ can optimize abiotic stress tolerance and antioxidant capacity to provide an additional boost to yield.

Alexin