A natural fertiliser

“Seabird guano is considered to be one of the best natural fertilisers in the world. It has been called ‘white gold’ and wars have been fought over the product, such is its value as a nutrient for food production,” says Stephen. With the widespread use of chemical fertiliser, the natural product, he notes, fell out of favour. “A method of mineralising guano has resulted in the production of a viable, usable fertiliser that can be easily transported and used on farms. The raw product goes into large vats where it is heated, agitated and fermented. All the nutrient value in the product is then released into a liquid concentrate fertiliser and bio-stimulant.”

A unique product

Guanoboost has several unique attributes,  Stephen explains: “It has three elements in one. We call it the three legs of nutrient loading. It has nutrients and while the N, P and K composition are relatively low, the product is chelated, so it’s in the correct form to be readily plant-available. There are more than 20 trace elements including boron and calcium. It also has carriers, including fulvic acid. The essential trace elements bind to the fulvic acid, with the result being that the plant can take up almost all of the nutrients in the fertiliser product. The unique aspect of Guanoboost is the fact that it contains 90,000 beneficial bacteria per millilitre. That means when you put a litre of the product into the soil, you are putting 90 million of these microbes in, and these double in number every four hours. That restores soil health and allows the plant to access nutrients that often have become unavailable because of soil degradation from the continuous use of chemical fertilisers.”

In common use

Guanoboost is in use in several countries already, including South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent. There has been extensive trialling of the product, as Stephen confirms: “We started as a very small business supplying high-value vegetable producers in the Limpopo area of South Africa. One particularly interesting anecdote is that as a small business with around 20 clients and one silo manufacturing Guanoboost, in the first year of our production, our farmer clients experienced a very cold winter. In all farms using our product, their plants recovered from the frost more quickly because of, we believe, the elevated photosynthesis, from the use of Guanoboost. That added to the reputation of the product and allowed the business to grow strongly. At this stage we are producing more than 200,000 litres of product monthly, servicing 3,500 commercial farmers across southern Africa.”

Stephen’s contention is that Guanoboost will work equally well on perennial ryegrasses as it does on the predominantly leguminous lucerne and alfalfa common in South Africa: “When we started production, farmers were mainly using our product as a supplement to their fertiliser programme. What they started seeing was yield increases, higher nutrient uptake and improved root development, resulting in more stress-resistant plants – whether that stress was from water deficits, heat intensity or cold conditions. When the fertiliser crisis kicked in after the war in Ukraine started, we had completed independent laboratory tests which identified that, in legumes, a strong yield increase was measured, of up to 17.5 per cent. On foot of those trials, farmers began to lower their NPK inputs, initially by 20 per cent, as they began to build up the microbial health of their soils. At this stage, there are farmers who have reduced their NPK inputs by up to 40 per cent and are supplementing with Guanoboost. They are still maintaining yield under this fertiliser strategy, while protecting the long-term sustainability of their soils. "On some of the ryegrass farms using the Guanaboost product, farmers have eliminated N, P, K inputs entirely, replacing them with micro-doses of 12.5 litres of Guanoboost after every cut of silage or hay. They are finding increases in Brix levels, higher protein contents and, in many incidences, increased yields as the farms continually build up soil health.” Brix testing can be used to measure sucrose found within vegetables and other plant-based foods. There is understood to be a direct correlation between a plant's Brix value and its taste, quality and nutritional density. Stephen continues: “There will be a plateau at some point. However, as a baseline, many farms are coming off a soil status with a lot of locked-in nutrients that are increasingly accessible from using Guanoboost.”

Application techniques

Guanoboost application requires no specialist equipment, Stephen explains: “It is normally applied through a boom sprayer. There is increasing adoption of drones to apply the product aerially. In South Africa, where there is a lot of pivot irrigation, that provides a mode of application through the water system. Drone application has particular benefit in more hilly farms where boom sprayer application can sometimes be problematic.”

Cost is often a determining factor in adopting novel technologies even if they do deliver obvious productivity increases. Stephen justifies the cost of Guanaboost: “While price points for use of the product in Ireland, for instance, have not been finalised, we estimate a cost in the region of €25/acre. If adopting the micro-dosing strategy, it is possible, we believe, to eliminate all NPK use on a farm. If used as part of an overall fertiliser programme, what we typically see is farmers reducing the chemical fertiliser component by up to 40 per cent, and supplementing with Guanoboost. Generally, that results in a cost-neutral fertiliser input programme.”

Environmentally neutral fertiliser

Historically, the exploitation of guano resulted in environmental damage to deposits built up over hundreds of thousands of years. What makes the Guanaboost product environmentally safe is the fact that it is harvested from current deposits of the natural fertiliser, Stephen explains: “We have platforms constructed at sea off the coast of Namibia. There are six hectares of these platforms that produce over 1,200 tonnes of guana manure annually. That’s enough for around thirteen million litres of product. One thousand litres are enough, in common practice on South African farms, to treat 40 hectares of farmland. That makes Guanoboost a very effective product. The interesting aspect is that the more it is used, the less is required. Typically, what we find is that farmers who have been using the product for a couple of years, are able to reduce the volume of product used.

“There is potential to increase output substantially, as we have a concession to cover up to 82 hectares of platform at sea. That makes production increases quite viable over the longer term as demand increases. Chile and Peru are other regions with the climatic conditions to optimise guana production on these off-shore platform constructs.”

Clearly, the product has potential. However, its efficacy under Irish grass and tillage conditions and soils needs investigative trialing to assess its economic and productivity values.