A simple membrane-based approach for assessing the diffusion kinetics of mineral foliar fertilizers

Abstract

: The present work explores a practical strategy for real-time assessment of foliar-based mineral fertilizers diffusion. Thereby, a dialysis tubing membrane was employed as a leaf cell-proxy for tracing the release of three commercial foliar fertilizer formulations and their correspondent primary compounds, MnCO 3 , Mg(OH) 2 , and Cu 2 O at the field-recommended concentration, by simply measuring changes on conductivity and pH during 96 h. It enabled either modulating fertilizer diffusion kinetics, as well as comparing the commercial formulations to its primary compound ones. Hence, the proposed approach stands out as a fast and effective tool for addressing relevant information about the performance of foliar fertilizer formulation, one of the bottlenecks of programs developing new fertilizer formulations.