UK: Levity CropScience lauch Albina for soft fruit firmness

Levity CropScience is launching Albina for Soft Fruit, a pioneering new product that improves fruit firmness and shelf-life, at this year's Fruit Focus event.

 

Albina works by helping soft fruit absorb calcium, a nutrient that can improve firmness and quality but is poorly absorbed by maturing soft fruit. Levity MD David Marks, explains “Most growers know that calcium is important for soft fruit, as it can improve cell wall strength which has a positive effect on shelf life, firmness and ability to withstand diseases. However when you look at the evidence it becomes clear that the calcium applied to crops like strawberries does not always end up in the fruit” adding “a lot of the calcium farmers apply to their crops is wasted as ripening fruit are not able to absorb it.”

 

“Calcium absorption in fruit is strongly linked to the transport of auxin, a plant hormone. In strawberries auxins in the achene (the seed) are transported into the developing fruit, allowing the fruit to absorb calcium. However ripening is triggered by cessation of auxin transport into the fruit, so as the fruit starts to turn red the ability to absorb calcium rapidly declines.” He further explains “this is why results from conventional calcium fertilisers are so erratic, sometimes the fruit can’t absorb calcium into fruit and the input is wasted. Levity products are developed by crop scientists, when you understand what causes problems with firmness (inability to absorb calcium) then you can develop smarter ways of supplying it”.

 

This is where Albina comes in. Albina uses Levity’s pioneering chemistry, to stimulate calcium absorbtion into ripening fruit, where conventional products cannot. David explains “I have been developing chemistry that helps calcium absorbtion for many years, the more we study the better we get at improving it. This is the most advanced product we have ever developed, it will help soft fruit producers get firmness, fruit set, shelf-life to higher standards using very low inputs”.

 

Levity MD Anna Weston said “Albina is the most advanced fruit firmness product ever developed, and will help soft fruit growers to produce higher yields with good firmness and shelf life. The product has a very distinct orange colour, which comes from natural stimulants that protect cell walls. This is a major advance in firmness, as we can protect cell walls at the same time as strengthening them with calcium” She concludes “Levity’s aim when we set out to develop a product is to first understand what the farmer needs, then understand the crop, and finally adapt our science into an easy to use product that delivers results for growers. When growers use Albina they will see good improvements over conventional products”.