Articles
Precise fertilization in greenhouse crops using modern decision support systems to save fertilisers and mitigate pollution of water resources
Article number
1391_97
Pages
723 – 734
Language
English
Abstract
Inappropriate fertilisation and farming practices result in serious environmental impacts.
These include overloading of soils with nutrients, which may result in pollution of groundwater with nitrates and phosphates, eutrophication in surface water, air pollution due to emission of greenhouse gasses and ammonia, rainfall acidification, and unwanted N-deposition in natural environments, harming thereby the whole ecosystem.
To address these problems, there is an urgent need to apply new agricultural production approaches and innovative technologies for crop management targeting the reduction of inputs and the circularity of resources.
ECONUTRI is an Innovation Action project funded by the European Commission (Horizon Europe), which is based on a multi-actor approach and aims at minimising or even eliminating nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of water resources and saving fertilisers without compromising yield.
To restrict NO3 leaching and P runoff due to inappropriate fertilization practices, the rates and timing of application must be adjusted to crop requirements and soil types.
To achieve this goal, researchers from The Netherlands, Spain and Greece are currently testing at farm scale three user-friendly DSSs aimed to plan precise nutrient management of basal applications and fertigation in soil-grown and soilless vegetable crops.
The DSS prepared by the Agricultural University of Athens was obtained by further developing the software NUTRISENSE (https://nutrisense.online/) to create two versions, one used by soilless growers and a second one aiming to support soil-grown crops.
The SOILLESS NUTRISENSE is used to calculate standard nutrient solutions for a diversity of soilless cultivated plants considering a water analysis, the season of the year and the plant developmental stage and readjusting their composition when a chemical analysis of the drainwater is available.
The SOIL NUTRISENSE is used to precisely calculate fertiliser requirements for basal dressing and fertigation of diverse crop species, mostly open-field and greenhouse vegetables, considering the season, irrigation water quality and soil analysis.
These include overloading of soils with nutrients, which may result in pollution of groundwater with nitrates and phosphates, eutrophication in surface water, air pollution due to emission of greenhouse gasses and ammonia, rainfall acidification, and unwanted N-deposition in natural environments, harming thereby the whole ecosystem.
To address these problems, there is an urgent need to apply new agricultural production approaches and innovative technologies for crop management targeting the reduction of inputs and the circularity of resources.
ECONUTRI is an Innovation Action project funded by the European Commission (Horizon Europe), which is based on a multi-actor approach and aims at minimising or even eliminating nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of water resources and saving fertilisers without compromising yield.
To restrict NO3 leaching and P runoff due to inappropriate fertilization practices, the rates and timing of application must be adjusted to crop requirements and soil types.
To achieve this goal, researchers from The Netherlands, Spain and Greece are currently testing at farm scale three user-friendly DSSs aimed to plan precise nutrient management of basal applications and fertigation in soil-grown and soilless vegetable crops.
The DSS prepared by the Agricultural University of Athens was obtained by further developing the software NUTRISENSE (https://nutrisense.online/) to create two versions, one used by soilless growers and a second one aiming to support soil-grown crops.
The SOILLESS NUTRISENSE is used to calculate standard nutrient solutions for a diversity of soilless cultivated plants considering a water analysis, the season of the year and the plant developmental stage and readjusting their composition when a chemical analysis of the drainwater is available.
The SOIL NUTRISENSE is used to precisely calculate fertiliser requirements for basal dressing and fertigation of diverse crop species, mostly open-field and greenhouse vegetables, considering the season, irrigation water quality and soil analysis.
Authors
D. Savvas, E. Giannothanasis, G. Ntatsi
Keywords
ECONUTRI, fertigation, hydroponics, nitrate pollution, nutrient model, soilless culture
Online Articles (105)