Direct-to-farm crop inputs provider and developer Meristem Crop Performance LLC, Columbus, Ohio, on June 1 announced the addition of Homestretch HarvestShield™, a new foliar biostimulant, to the company’s range of Homestretch foliar plant nutrition products.
“Given current commodity prices, our farmer-customers are asking us for more solutions to feed the crop all season long and help them gain higher yields,” said Mitch Eviston, Founder and CEO of Meristem. “We are thrilled to announce the addition of HarvestShield to the Homestretch line-up. We now have seven top-quality options for high-yield farmers.”
Meristem said HarvestShield contains polyphenols to protect corn and soybean plants from oxidation due to environmental stress; auxins to stimulate cell division; betaines to keep water content stable in plant cells; arginine to serve as a building block for polyamines; and tryptophan as an amino acid building block for Indole-3-acetic acid, which assists plants in cell expansion and cell division.
“The special amino acids and other components of HarvestShield help the plant produce more of its own defensive compounds to cope with the adversity it’s facing, whether it’s heat, drought, nutrient deficiency, or pesticide stress,” said Larry Fiene, Field Agronomist and Founder of Planet Earth Agronomy, Middleton, Wisc. Fiene said his company’s stress-plot data in corn has shown yield advantages of 7-10 bushel/acre at the low end, and up to 10-20 bushels/acres in high-yield situation.