Better Spread, Better Fertilization

Does size matter? It may sound playful, but in controlled-release fertilizers it points to something essential: granule size and, even more importantly, how many granules you apply per gram.

Modern CRF technology focuses on coatings, osmotic processes and release curves, but true nutritional uniformity starts with something much simpler. It’s the number of contact points on the field or in the growing medium, the number of granules within a single gram of fertilizer.

More granules means more precision

A CRF granule is not just a pellet. It is a micro-reservoir of nutrients that releases over several months. When you apply fifteen or sixteen of those reservoirs per gram, the feeding pattern across the crop looks very different compared to applying forty or more.

Mivena compared several similar CRF products, all with six-month longevity and all fully coated NPK formulas. Each product was tested by counting exactly one gram of granules. The results were striking.

Results:

Horti-Cote Plus 16-6-11 → 41 granules per gram
O-cote Exact Standard 15-9-12 → 28 granules per gram
M-Cote 15-9-15 → 17 granules per gram
E-kote 15-9-14 → 16 granules per gram

The conclusion is simple. When the same amount of nutrients is divided over smaller and more uniform granules, you create more contact points in the root zone. More contact points lead to a more even nutrient supply. And a CRF that falls more evenly performs more evenly.

The comparison speaks for itself. At the same weight, Durable® CRF 44-0-0 delivers roughly four times more granules than Cote-N 42-0-0. More granules mean more contact points, a finer spread pattern and noticeably more uniform feeding across the treated area. This simple physical difference directly translates into more consistent plant performance.

Impact on growth, colour and root development

Plant performance is highly sensitive to variations in nutrient distribution. A finer granule distribution leads to more uniform colour, more consistent leaf mass and fewer visible patches. In both turf and horticultural crops, a higher granule count results in steadier growth and predictable biomass production.

Roots benefit as well. When nutrients are released evenly, stress is reduced and plants develop a more balanced root system. This effect is especially important in soft fruit, pot plants and young plants where uniformity is critical.

Visual of spread quality

The Durable CRF visualization shows clearly how granule count affects real-world spreading. A product with about 120 granules per gram creates a near pixel-like coverage, while one with only thirty leaves gaps and clusters.

This difference in physical spread leads to noticeable differences in plant response, not because the formulation changes, but because the distribution does.

Why Mivena focuses on high granule density

In Horti-Cote Plus and Durable CRF, Mivena intentionally uses compact, high-density granules. Each particle is fully coated and engineered for controlled nutrient release. By increasing the number of granules per gram, feeding becomes more stable, more predictable and ultimately more efficient.

Conclusion: Does size matter?

Yes, size matters, especially when it comes to performance.

CRF performance is not driven by chemistry alone. It also depends on a physical reality that is often overlooked: how evenly the nutrition is distributed. The difference between sixteen and forty-one granules per gram is the difference between average uniformity and true professional precision.

Granule count determines spread quality. Spread quality determines growth quality. And that makes granule size and granule density one of the most underestimated performance factors in controlled-release fertilizers.