Alpine Plant Foods opened an $8 million liquid phosphate production facility in Belle Plaine, Sask., last week.
The plant will be able to produce 700,000 litres per day of liquid phosphate.
The Ontario-based company has done business in Western Canada for more than 10 years and is expanding its presence because of growing demand for starter fertilizer in Western Canada.
The plant will reduce shipping costs and speed turnaround time for delivery.
“For the last 10 years … we have been shipping fertilizer from our plant here in Ontario to the West by rail, direct to farmers and dealers and we have simply maxed our ability to do that on an efficient basis,” said Neil Dolson, Alpine Plant Foods president.
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The company hopes its liquid product, applied at seeding as a starter fertilizer, will find a growing market in Western Canada, which often has cool, dry springs.
A dry phosphate needs to break down and become available through the soil, but Alpine’s soluble solution is immediately usable by the plant.
“In times when the soil conditions are not ideal for the young plant to feed off the soil, our fertilizer is sitting there, waiting for it to feed off,” Dolson said.
“It is particularly useful in early spring planting. Farmers are pushing that limit everywhere, especially in markets like Western Canada where one of the risks that farmers have to manage is potential early frost and if you can get planted early with a faster start, that is a great benefit.”
Belle Plaine, about 45 kilometres west of Regina, is becoming a fertilizer hub, with Alpine joining the Mosaic potash mine and Yara’s nitrogen fertilizer plant. Dolson said Alpine will likely use Yara nitrogen in its fertilizer but the Mosaic mine produces a grade of potassium that Alpine does not use in Western Canada.
Alpine also produces micronutrients and a line of foliar fertilizers.
