Environmentally-friendly ingredients continue to grow as an international agricultural trend. Because AZOMITE is an OMRI-listed multi-mineral fertilizer, it was chosen to take part in an experiment to test its practical application on peach crops from the YangShan District of WuXi City, Jiangsu Province, China. The well-known peach from this area supplies major markets such as Shanghai, Nanjing, and HangZhou. There are over 100,000 Mu (6600 hec) of peach farms in the area, with an annual production of over 100,000 tons of peaches between May and August. The objective of the test included the effect of AZOMITE on peach trees under stress due to age or depleted soil nutrients.

2.1 AZOMITE was provided by Shanghai Lytone Biochemicals, Ltd. Potassium sulfate was purchased from commercial sources.
2.2 Experiment Design: A total of 12 lots were selected at random to divide into 3 different groups. Each group will have 3 lots as replicates with 0.5 Mu (333 M2) each lot. The three groups are:
A. 3KG AZOMITE spread around the root crown of each Peach Tree. Approximately 150KG were used for each Mu.(Ave. 50 trees/Mu). Additionally, 5KG organic fertilizers were used per tree;
B. 3KG of a commercial chemical fertilizer was used instead of AZOMITE® . 5KG organic fertilizer was also used;
C. Only 5KG organic fertilizer was used for each tree.
2.3 Location: All of the lots were located in Yangshan Village, Yangshan Township.
2.4 Plants: All of the Peach trees were locally grown since late 1970s. There was some seedling improvement effort. However, the farmers seemed to rely solely on the government extension station's help in strain improvement.
2.5 Land: The fertilizer strength of the soil in question were of average, with a rather flat layout. There was no significant differences in soil condition between the groups
2.6 Season: The fertilizers were all applied on Nov. 15, 2003 according to plan, and covered lightly with soil. There was no significant weather condition that could have impacted the results of the trial. The management practice of the farms were also identical.

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