Redefining sustainable fertility management
The CrossOver product line meets growing demand for high-quality plant-available silicon fertilizers in agriculture, turf and horticulture markets. CrossOver’s patented formulation of plant-available silicon, calcium and magnesium provides a comprehensive approach to soil and plant health. Silicon that is readily available to crops, turf and plants is vital to boost plants’ ability to withstand outside pressure and disease.
While many products lay claim to silicon’s benefits, plants can only absorb silicon as monosilicic acid (H4SiO4), the form that CrossOver’s proprietary formula offers. CrossOver guarantees one of the highest – if not the highest – levels of plant-available silicon in soil-applied products, with silicon that is readily available to crops, turf and plants.
Protect and nourish
Growers understand that a plant that can defend itself against threats on all fronts is one that will, in turn, be able to reach its full genetic potential. CrossOver enables a myriad of defenses, and the resulting benefits can be broken down further for a comprehensive understanding of its advantage.
Soil structure
Sound soil structure is critical to sustaining an effective and efficient agro-system. It affects how water penetrates, drains and moves through the soil. It also determines how valid and sustainable the supply, storage and release of both nutrients and pollutants are to your crop. With CrossOver, silicon-rich complexes improve flocculation of dispersed clay particles, a chemical process less susceptible to desorption than what calcium soil conditioners offer.
Soil stability
Long-term soil stabilization occurs when calcium ions chemically react with monosilicic acid and alumina to form polymer gels that bind soil particle surfaces. Soil treated with CrossOver demonstrates longer-term improvement in strength, swell behavior, aggregate formation and cation exchange – a soil characteristic that allows it to hold onto essential nutrients and buffers against acidification.
Metal toxicity
Some metals, such as iron, copper and zinc, are micronutrients at low concentrations but become toxic at higher levels. Others, such as aluminum, are known only for their toxicity.
Metal toxicity has been shown to reduce photosynthesis, affect enzyme and protein production and utilization, alter nutrient transport and cause negative overall effects on cellular function. CrossOver has shown that it can immobilize toxic elements in the soil and limit plant uptake.
Phosphorus is a necessary element for plant growth, metabolism and reproduction. However, it’s also a limiting factor to plant productivity on an estimated 40 percent of the world’s arable soil.
Soluble phosphates used in fertilizers can quickly form insoluble complexes with metals, minerals, soil particles and organic matter. As a result, up to 80 percent of applied phosphorus is rendered potentially unavailable for plant uptake.
In acidic soils, phosphorus fixes to aluminum and iron, leaving as little as 10-15 percent plant available. Monosilicic acid raises the soil pH, which lowers the mobility and solubility of aluminum and iron. In turn, this lowers the number of sites that can fix to phosphorus.
Monosilicic acid also absorbs to aluminum and iron oxides. The negative charge of the silicate anion repels phosphate anions, keeping dissolved phosphorus in a soluble form in the soil solution.
Raising pH also releases the phosphorus that was loosely bound to aluminum and iron.
Monosilicic acid has been shown to increase plants’ tolerance to sodium toxicity by preventing sodium root absorption and transport from roots to shoots. It also accelerates plant processes that remove sodium from plant cells in roots, thereby decreasing potentially disruptive effects of a high sodium-to-potassium ratio.
Once a plant absorbs silicon, it continues to actively contribute to a balanced state of nutrient availability through uptake processes, micro-distribution of mineral ions and compartmentalization of metal ions.
Silicon in epidermal cells and cell walls produces more upright leaf blades with improved light interception characteristics and increased photosynthetic activity. Silicon has been reported to improve photosynthetic efficiency by causing elevated concentrations of chlorophyll per unit area of leaf tissue.
Plants react to stress by increasing production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Overproduction of ROS can result in oxidative stress, which weakens plants and diminishes crop quality.
Coping with oxidative stress in an economical and environmentally sustainable way is a major challenge to successful crop management. Soil amendments are often limited to performing geochemical corrections without targeting yield-limiting plant stresses.
When absorbed by plants, CrossOver’s silicon acts as a defense mediator, influencing the timing and extent of plant defense signals and responses to stress conditions.
Specific stress responses improved by CrossOver’s silicon can include:
- Alleviation of salt stress
- Reduction of drought stress and heat stress
- Promotion of balanced nutrient availability and transport
- Improvement in plant structural integrity
- Increase in root activity or growth
- Increased photosynthetic activity
Agriculture
Optimize yield and quality with the fertilizer that provides a comprehensive defense to environmental stresses.
Agriculture benefitsHorticulture
Balance variances in pH to ensure complete nutrient availability all growing season.
Horticulture benefitsProfessional turf
Meet the alternative to calcium, lime and gypsum products that provides a longer-term solution to soil stabilization.
Turf grass benefits