Phosyn’s new state-of-the-art analytical laboratory, based at the company’s head office in Queensland, was launched in September 2001 and is now firmly established as a key nutritional analysis service provider to many agribusiness groups across Australasia. Phosyn has over 20 years of both Australian and international experience in cotton nutrition and routinely processes thousands of tests for the industry during the season.

The laboratory development began with the key recruitments of Mark Ridings (Laboratory Manager) and Robert Cirocco (Laboratory Supervisor) to the company. Prior to joining Phosyn, Mark was working with CSIRO and has considerable experience in laboratory design, operation and management. Robert was working at the University of Queensland and also has extensive experience in laboratory analysis specifically for Australian conditions.

Many factors such as environmental conditions are out of cotton growers’ control, but effective nutritional management can be proactively dealt with over the season. A powerful tool which can assist with the monitoring and management of cotton nutrition, is the nutritional analysis of soil, water and plant tissue.

Over the past three years of nutritional analysis to cotton clients within Australia, Phosyn has acquired a vast amount of information that assists with the interpretation of analysis results at different growth stages.

A popular feature of the service is an analysis report with guidelines, interpretations and recommendations on either leaf or petiole sample at critical growth stages.

Each sample is rapidly analysed for the ‘essential 15’ macro and micronutrients, which enables a comprehensive assessment of the nutritional status of the crop. It is vitally important to perform a comprehensive and not a limited analysis, as each of these 15 nutrients are critical in determining the yield and quality of the crop.

Factors which affect both crop yield and quality can be related to nutritional imbalances, which can be addressed by improved nutritional management practices. Rapid and comprehensive assessment of available nutrients in the crop can flag the need for important ‘top-up’ fertiliser applications.