PSC Shifang plant
PSC’s Shifang plant started this year in February 18th and successfully produced the raw materials for the peak season in Xinjiang. In April we upgraded further with a vacuum crystallization unit and a new gas fired steam boiler. These improvements will allow the plant to support our export sales starting mid summer after the Xinjiang season.
"We are ready ourselves to serve our customers to world-class standards ”
Danny Decombel, PSC Managing Director
PSC started out as an agricultural consultancy in early 2005.
The immediate challenge was to support farmers who were using the imported FertiCare Ace water soluble products from Kemira GrowHow on cotton, processing tomatoes, grapes and melons in the Western Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China.
Farmers, impressed with the effectiveness of urea applications, are applying excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizers and mostly at less than ideal timing. Few have ever analyzed soil for residual nitrogen, nor realized the production levels that the nitrogen application targeted, nor have any ever used a petiole nitrate monitoring program. This results in rank growth and heavy applications of Pix to control the excessive vegetative growth. It is then again followed by frequent insecticide applications as aphids and other insects devour the crop. Flowering and fruiting are affected and so is cotton fiber and seed production.
The same imbalance in N, P and K applications is in evidence to the other main crops in Xinjiang. We set out with this as both our challenge and business opportunity. Correcting the imbalance results in almost immediate gains in profitability for the farmers and allows us to sell advanced water-soluble fertilizers. In 2005 we were working just with three staff and in 2006 this is now increased to six agronomists to be able to cover more ground, as ground there is in Xinjiang with some 18 million square km territory.
PSC promotes the use of imported Kemira GrowHow Oy produced water-soluble products. Sales and marketing of these products is handled by independent importers and distributors as appointed by Kemira GrowHow Oy. and or their agents.
PSC also daily promotes the use of measurement technology to support fertilizer decisions and applications. During 2005, PSC was appointed agent for USA based Spectrum Technologies, Inc. We use soil moisture meters and irrigation station data loggers, computer software and various meters to make measurement in the field of crop nutritional status, on which to base our recommendations for fertilizer applications.
In the future we plan to promote these technologies to many more farmers and so contribute to the further strengthening of Chinese farming, improve Chinese farmers livelihood, reduce untimely and wasteful applications of nitrogenous fertilizer and reduce the impact on the environment.
PSC also set-up a soil lab to handle the analysis of soil samples collected from customer’s fields before a detailed fertilizer program is calculated and recommended.
PSC is proving daily that sound scientific based information applied correctly can help farmers achieve the highest economic return from their farms, protect the soil and the environment and preserve valuable resources for the country and the world at the same time.
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