Fossilised diatomite from Middlemarch is being field tested as a fertiliser and soil conditioner in Australia and around Dunedin in what could become a replacement or alternative for the standard hard-fertiliser traditionally used on farms.
Chief executive of Featherston Resources Ltd Tim Goodacre confirmed samples had recently been sent to Australia for testing on grain crops.
Small trial tests were also under way on cherry orchards around Dunedin.
"We want to develop a fertiliser alternative to traditional hard fertiliser, which will also build up soil condition and structure as well as [the usual] nutrients from fertiliser," he said when contacted in South Yarra, Victoria, yesterday.
Mr Goodacre was targeting development of a environmentally friendly natural product of several components, and while the recipe was commercially sensitive, it would include a mix of diatomite and fish nutrients, he said.
However, Mr Goodacre stressed the diatomite project was still in its trial stages, and while hoping to have New Zealand results in a year's time, it could take several years to build up year-on-year trial results in Australia.
"We have been encouraged by the trials [on cherries] around Dunedin. Grain in Australia could take two to three years to fully trial," he said.
In early September, it was revealed the country's largest fertiliser company was investigating reopening New Zealand's only phosphate resource, in South Otago, which could potentially save farmers nearly $1 billion a year in imported phosphate rock. Ravensdown Fertiliser Co-operative said a deposit at Clarendon had become commercially viable as the world price of phosphate rock rose from $75 a tonne in 2007 to $740 a tonne recently.
Diatomite is the fossilised remains of up to 100,000 different varieties of microscopic water-borne algae called diatoms, impregnated with silica, which when mined resembles hard fertiliser such as limestone or phosphate.
It is used as fertiliser, an insect repellent in agriculture and home applications and also white-wash for buildings.
In New Zealand, it is at present only mined near Rotorua by Enfrik, but is mined elsewhere around the world.
Mr Goodacre said the company, through its shareholders, have had access and mineral permits covering the Middlemarch deposits from Crown Minerals for several years.
Featherson shareholders had spent "several million" to date on trialling extracts from the "substantial" deposit, which he believed had a "more than 20-year" mining lifespan, but was yet to be substantiated.
A diatomite product was made through "simple low-energy processing" and could be exported or sold domestically, but Mr Goodacre said it was too early to estimate mining or development costs.
"This could eventually become an important product for the region, in its development and jobs," Mr Goodacre said.
Featherston Resources Ltd was registered in December 1997 and has 57.1 million shares with more than 140 separate shareholders.
More than 70 are in New Zealand, including stakeholders based in Dunedin, Cromwell and Invercargill.
There are about 60 in Australia, six in the United Kingdom, three in Hong Kong and one each in the United States and Singapore.
