The Fertilise Wise Logo
A major Western Australian NGO group that is part of an Australia wide Federally funded network of environmental groups badged under: “Natural Resource Management” (NRM) is known by the acronym of “SERCUL” (ie: South Eastern Centre for Urban Landcare - see website: www.sercul.org.au).
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This group is situated on the South-East fringe of the Perth Metropolitan area, amid environmentally sensitive wetland areas on the Swan Coastal Plain, subjected to increasing pressure from rapidly expanding urban development.
In order to promote the responsible use of domestic fertilisers in their region, SERCUL conceived and trademarked a logo called “Fertilise Wise”; as the spearhead of a public awareness campaign about the potential for excessive leaching of highly water soluble fertilisers used in home gardens contributing to waterway eutrophication.
In Western Australia, an arid climate coupled with ancient, weathered sandy soils featuring limited nutrient holding capacity, waterway pollution from fertiliser run-off is becoming a major escalating problem with every passing year.
For many of the past decade’s summers, Perth’s iconic Swan River has been subjected to extensive algal blooms which have limited recreational activity on the river and have caused a great deal of negative media attention.
Comparisons have been made between the present day situation; which sees Perth experiencing an unprecedented population boom and extensive new suburbs being laid down at a rapid rate; and the historical perspective; when the relatively slowly expanding population of that time did not exert such great pressure on the Swan River, the very heart of Perth’s urban water catchment.
SERCUL group originally set out to use “Fertilise Wise” as an educational tool, but it soon became apparent that gardeners in WA’s notoriously poor sandy soils required some kind of assistance from fertilisers in order to be able to successfully carry out gardening.
SERCUL saw that they had to recommend some kind of fertiliser product as being more suitable than others, so that in order to change the fertiliser choice behaviour of home gardeners, they could advertise the need to substitute an acceptable product in the place of a notoriously polluting product – (such as the high phosphate or high nitrogen containing fertilisers that typified the majority of the brands of fertiliser commonly available on the domestic Perth market.)
Thus began the difficult journey for SERCUL to find a fertiliser that they could confidently endorse with the “Fertilise Wise” logo. They had set down strict criteria that qualified a fertiliser for their endorsement, but they immediately experienced difficulty finding products, or even a company that could even begin to plan to comply with the criteria. Whilst many companies did apply initially for this endorsement, they were all making various types of “organic” soil amendments, derived from combinations of chicken and animal manures.
SERCUL knew that it was becoming apparent that liberally applied animal manures on sandy soils leach a large percentage of poisonous nitrates into waterways and are therefore far from being environmentally friendly, despite having the tag of being “organic”. They consequently refused such companies the “Fertilise Wise” endorsement.
“”Fertilise Wise” endorsement criteria are both unique and world first. Not only do they require labelling for appropriate soil type and application rates for plant types, but crucially the fertiliser is required to address Allbrecht’s criteria for Base Cation Saturation rate.
Furthermore, the fertiliser must not contribute to soil acidification, and cannot contain high levels of water soluble phosphates or nitrogens. This precludes most of the fertilisers commonly in the marketplace at the present time.
“Shades of Green”, a range of low leaching, soil sweetening fertilisers made by a new WA company called “Stocktech Australia” are presently the ONLY brand of fertilisers that qualify for this strict criteria - ie. designed to genuinely protect the environment and at the same time allow successful gardening.
An annual License fee is payable to SERCUL for the use of the “Fertilise Wise” logo on the bags and on all marketing material for “Shades of Green”. This License fee is proportional to sales, and amounts to an unusual commercial alliance between a government NGO and private enterprise.
It allows the development of a key partnership for marketing and public education, and is a true win-win situation. In this way, SERCUL have their “Fertilise Wise” message amplified in the marketplace alongside the marketing of “Shades of Green”, and Stocktech enjoys the credibility and support of SERCUL in building their brand “Shades of Green” as an environmentally friendly and healthy fertiliser for home gardeners, semi-rural and rural farmers.