New Nutrition Tracking tools
By Ian Carlo Bottinelli Wolleter - Agricultural Engineer - Plant Nutrition Specialist
One of the aspects that is generally taken into account when budgeting the management of a fruit orchard, vineyard or vineyard is the monitoring of nutritional status during the spring. Just as a high performance athlete must periodically control their levels, a fruit orchard must be controlled at least in the key phenological stages in order to make the changes that the plant is asking to improve and obtain an abundant and quality crop.
In Chile, it is normal to perform a couple of leaf analyzes per year and that is all and often with a low level of analysis and subsequent interpretation.
The main benefits of investing in nutritional monitoring are:
- Detect early or anticipate nutritional problems that will impact the performance and / or quality of the fruit, for example: boron deficiency in pre-fluoride, calcium deficit in post-curd or potassium deficit during fruit fattening phase, excess nitrogen it can affect the quality, etc.
- Correct the fertigation plan on time
- Savings in fertilizer costs and better management
- Greater productivity and fruit quality.
Traditionally, nutritional monitoring is based on methodologies that show a photo of the levels accumulated up to the time of sampling (leaf blade analysis and soil analysis).
Today, the tendency is to use methodologies that show the kinetics of the elements in the plant or from the soil to the plant. Among these, the use of suction probes and analyzes to the sap of the plants are the technologies of excellent precision. Both turn out to be complementary and provide very fine information about what is actually absorbing and metabolizing the plant at the time of sampling as well as the relationships that occur between the different mineral elements.
The suction probes are the most commonly used in orchards and basically consist of 3 or 4 probes installed at a point in the field. From the first probe, a sample of the solution being injected into the system is extracted directly from the dropper. Then, more or less 24 hours after injected the fertilizers a sample of the "soil solution" is extracted from the remaining probes; by difference of concentrations it is determined that fraction of the applied nutrients was absorbed by the plant, how much is being washed, how much it would be accumulating in the soil, and so on.
The photo of the example shows measurements made with probes, where it is observed that during the vegetative growth phase the orchard absorbs a large part of the nitrogen supply (very low reading of the soil solution); On the contrary, when approaching flowering, longer readings are generated in the probes at 20, 40 and 60cm in relation to the SFR contribution. This means that the plant is not absorbing the elements and is staying on the ground. If the probe to 60 cm tends to increase it can indicate an excessive washing of nutrients and / or accumulation in depth of the element.
This technology is a powerful tool for monitoring and optimizing fertigation.
Sap Analysis is another way to carry out a very precise nutritional follow-up. It consists of taking a sample of leaves to which the sap is extracted from the petioles to later analyze it. One of the main characteristics is the speed of execution and the obtaining of results. In general, this tool adds a lot of value by determining very quickly and precisely the relationships and balances between the different key nutritional elements in some phenological state.
For example, this technique is used extensively in intensive crops to monitor relationships between cations. It is the case of indeterminate tomatoes, where the physiological disorder known as Blotchy is the result of an imbalance in the vascular concentrations of Ca, K, Nitrogen and EC of the soil solution, the sap analysis allows in 24 hours to determine where it is generating an imbalance that prevents the correct process of maturation and painting of the tomato.
Like any new technology, an appropriate agronomic interpretation must be made, a plan of actions and corrections aimed at making the most of these services.
In most cases where there is a conscientious and concerned work of nutritional monitoring and the real use of the data provided by these services, the benefits far exceed the costs of implementation and monitoring.
Source: Fruit Portal
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