Superior Cuticle Care Starts with Parka®
Cultiva® Parka® is powered by SureSeal™ technology – the proprietary, innovative solution changing the way growers protect their crop against environmental stress while enhancing productivity. The foundation of Parka starts with advanced scientific understanding of the fruit’s natural cuticle layer, its composition, function and purpose in protecting the plant.
Why Use Parka®?
Parka’s composition of food-grade phospholipids supplements the plant’s cuticle forming a protective shield to maintain the integrity of fruit and foliage. It offers a number of grower-friendly advantages.
Parka is:
- Elastic: Coating flexes and expands with plant and fruit growth, extending efficacy and reducing number of applications.
- Hydrophobic: Repels water, reducing cracking and improving fruit quality.
- Permeable: Allows continued transpiration and gas exchange. Not an antitranspirant.
- Edible: Made of food-grade ingredients, which means an excellent worker safety profile and no maximum residue restrictions.
- Clear: Leaves no residue. Fruit is easy to pick and pack and is appealing to consumers.
- Compatible: Easily tank mixed with a wide variety of products with no surfactant needed.
Parka is the only product in the market that combines physical and biochemical properties to enhance cuticular membrane stability and mitigate external disorders that result from environmental extremes.
IMPROVES FRUIT QUALITY AND YIELDS
Parka improves the plant’s natural defenses to environmental stress as well as enhances its ability to reflect harmful UV radiation.
ENHANCES ELASTICITY
The film formed by Parka provides an elastic, uniform coating over the existing cuticle, enhancing the hydrophobic surface of the crop as well as providing a flexible vector for the implementation of additional nutrients.
PROLONGS SHELF LIFE
Parka slows down fruit ripening by having an inhibitory effect on ethylene production and loss of firmness.
EXEMPT FROM TOLERANCE
The safe and soft nature of the ingredients in Parka allow for a limitless number of applications per season and no pre-harvest interval.
Improve Cracking Suppression and Fruit Quality with Parka®
By supplementing the cuticle on cherries, Parka® demonstrates its ability to reduce rain cracking by 50%. How? By repelling moisture from the fruit surface and increasing membrane stability to minimize external water damage.
Parka’s unique elasticity allows a simple application program starting at shuck fall. Early applications of Parka reduce the development of micro-fractures in the cuticle at this early stage, leading to less cracking at harvest. Parka also helps increase the plant’s tolerance to environmental stress and provides sunburn protection. This results in improved fruit quality and yield at harvest as well as prolonged shelf life.
Post-harvest applications of Parka have also shown to protect trees from heat stress for a healthier crop, and reduce the incidence of fruit doubling the following season.
Improve Fruit Quality and Cracking Suppression with Parka®
Supplementing the cuticle on blueberries with Parka® has shown to improve overall packout, increase firmness of the fruit and protect against sunburn. For varieties that are susceptible to splitting, Parka applications can reduce cracking by an average of 50%. Its hydrophobic properties repel moisture from the fruit surface to minimize water damage.
Improve Fruit Finish and Sunburn Protection with Parka®
Supplementing the cuticle on apples with Parka® can improve fruit quality and finish, and reduces sunburn. During cell elongation, apples expand rapidly, which can cause the cuticle to fracture. Applications of Parka can fill in fractures, enabling the cuticle to better expand as the fruit grows. Parka protects the fruit cuticle from damaging pathogens and reduces the impact of heat stress and sunburn. Protecting the cuticle also improves color development by elevating anthocyanin levels. Fruit treated with Parka has also demonstrated less post-harvest disorders including stem-end splitting and bitterpit.
Increase Marketable Yields with Parka®
Applying Parka® on almonds supplements the cuticle of the leaf, improving nut retention that leads to higher yields. The cuticle is the barrier to water loss and a key component in gas exchange and transpiration. Research also shows that Parka helps almonds optimize daily water utilization. Supplementing the cuticle with Parka is key to managing crop stress from extreme, sometimes hostile, environmental conditions.
Improve Fruit Quality and Shelf Life with Parka®
Applying Parka® on peaches and nectarines increases the hydrophobic tendency of the cuticle, improving fruit quality and reducing inking, black staining and other rain-induced issues. Parka has also demonstrated it can mitigate the effects of sunburn and chilling injury disorders, including mealiness, by altering the fruit’s ethylene production capacity.
Less Cracking for Higher Yield, Improved Shelf Life
Early applications of Parka® reduce the development of micro-fractures in the cuticle, leading to less cracking at harvest and reduced intrusion of opportunistic pathogens. Parka also helps increase the plant’s tolerance to environmental stress and provides sunburn protection. This results in improved fruit quality and yield at harvest as well as prolonged shelf life
Clear Protection Under the Sun
By supplementing the natural cuticle of the fruit, Parka® protects citrus from damage caused by environmental stress. Applications of Parka can reduce sunburn and cracking, and improve fruit quality, yield and shelf life.
Reduce Stress and Enhance New Plant Growth
Parka® is the only product on the market that combines physical and biochemical properties to boost cuticular membrane stability. Supplementing new plants with Parka helps protect against the effects of environmental stress for a healthy crop.
