Alternative crops: new opportunities for high-value agriculture

Alongside traditional crops, new alternatives are gaining importance, responding to specific markets and requiring highly precise agronomic management. These include aromatic and medicinal plants, crops intended for the production of plant extracts and, in particular, cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes.

The progressive regulation of this crop in different markets has encouraged the development of professional production systems, both in open fields and in greenhouses and controlled-environment facilities. In these systems, achieving consistent, high-quality production requires careful management of factors such as nutrition, water availability, salinity, temperature and radiation.

In this context, cannabis shares a fundamental characteristic with other intensive crops: nutritional balance directly influences plant development. Elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are essential, but so are secondary nutrients such as sulphur.

Sulphur is involved in numerous metabolic processes and is a constituent of essential amino acids such as cysteine and methionine. It also plays a role in the synthesis of proteins, enzymes and compounds associated with the plant's natural response mechanisms to stress. Ensuring adequate sulphur availability is therefore relevant throughout the different stages of crop development.

SULTECH: sulphur-based biostimulation

At AFEPASA, we have been researching new ways to harness the agronomic potential of sulphur for many years. This work led to the development of SULTECH, a technology designed to integrate sulphur into solutions aimed at improving crop response and optimising crop management.

Products developed with SULTECH technology can address different agronomic needs through both soil and foliar applications. At the root level, their use can be integrated into strategies for managing soils and growing media affected by salinity, progressively promoting better conditions for nutrient availability. Through foliar application, SULTECH is incorporated into biostimulant formulations designed to support plants during periods of high physiological demand and stressful conditions.

Solutions such as MICROSUL 40S, TRIUMPHALIS and ORGANOSUL NS demonstrate how sulphur-based technology can be adapted to different crop strategies.

The emergence of alternative crops such as cannabis therefore represents a new scenario for agricultural innovation: high-value crops requiring specialised solutions, nutritional efficiency and technologies capable of meeting the demands of increasingly sophisticated production systems.