In the field, we repeatedly see AEA’s nutritional products outperforming other products, even when those other products have much higher nutrient levels.

This isn’t a miracle, and it’s not deceptive advertising, it’s due to the simple fact of how they’re formulated.

A common (and wrong) way to analyze product performance is based on the label number alone: that 20% N is twice as good as 10% N, and 15% Manganese is 5 times better than 3% manganese.

But a product should be judged on its performance, not its percentage.

There are 2 aspects to this:

1. Bioavailability (the plant’s ability to absorb it)
2. Biological activity (the plant’s ability to use it)

AEA’s products are chelated.

• Basically, this means that the nutrients are bonded to a molecule that the plant routinely uses, like an organic acid or an amino acid.
• The plant recognizes that molecule, and so takes it up without spending too much energy—and the nutrient along with it.

This includes our Rebound Line of Micronutrients, our Holo line of macronutrients, . . . actually, everything we sell!

So, how do you actually measure a product’s performance if you can’t trust the label rates?

Thankfully, it’s quite easy with sap analysis: you can take sap samples before and after applying a nutritional product, and see how much it moved the nutrient level.

Read on for a case study of a farm we worked with who was wasting money on ineffective nutrients and over-applied nutrients, and how we saved them money and got better results by switching to a sap-guided nutritional program.

We’ll be sharing more stories like this in the coming months.

Flushing money down the fertigation tubes

We worked with a large organic hydroponic tomato grower in Mexico. Using sap analysis, we learned they were:

1. Applying excessive nitrogen and potassium
2. Using ineffective micronutrient products

We advised reducing their macronutrients and using different micronutrients.

The result was a 20-30% savings on their main fertigation program by reducing excessive nutrition AND healthier plants from the effective AEA nutrients.​

Here’s what happened:

The grower reached out to AEA to help us refine their nutritional program.

We used sap analysis on their hydroponic tomatoes, and discovered things were way out of whack.

Their micronutrient levels were way too low, in spite of fertigating micronutrient products with high percentages on the label (e.g. 13% iron, 15% zinc, 13% manganese, 17.5% boron.

The farm was basically fertigating with really expensive water.

• We started them on foliars with AEA’s Rebound micronutrients, which have much lower rates on the label (generally 3%) .

Their micronutrient levels rose dramatically.

• Iron, Manganese, and Boron, all about doubled.
• Molybdenum rose 326%.
• Cobalt, which had been undetectable, rose into an acceptable range.
• (Copper numbers are skewed by the farm’s use of copper fungicides).​

Their calcium product wasn’t actually moving the calcium levels on the sap.

• We switched them to a different product, and levels rose 36%: into the optimal range

Nitrates and ammonium were far in excess.

• We reduced both: by 69% and 40%, respectively.
• Still excessive, but on the right track.​

All of that happened in the middle of the season.

• After seeing the improvements from the AEA treatment and learning how much money they were pouring down the drain with their historical program, the grower promptly abandoned the control block and applied the AEA treatment to the whole farm.

That’s happened to us more times than we can count.

• A loss for science, but a win for the farmer.

Even with just a short period of different treatment, at the end of the season the AEA treated section showed:

• 11.3% yield increase
• 18.3% fruit Brix increase
• 4.2% color increase