THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIQUES OF FERTILIZATION AND IRRIGATION IN PROTECTED CULTIVATION, IN THE FRENCH MEDITERRANEAN AREA.

To introduce this special session on irrigation and fertilization, we have decided to consider the question from a historical point of view, and to look back at how techniques have evolved over the last few decades.

We have taken a case : that of the South of France, which has the longest history of cultivation under glass in the Mediterranean basin.
By this mean we can trace, one by one, the successive stages of this evolution, and look in detail at each stage.

Techniques of fertilization and irrigation have evolved through four stages :

• the stage of empirical operations, where culture was irrational and intuitive

• that of the rationalization of techniques ;

• of automatization, and finally that of

• the soilless system, which appèars to be the solution of the future.

Each stage corresponds to a step forward in techniques of irrigation and fertilization.
Used in different circumstances, all the techniques we will refer to are still in use.
So we can look at them in turn, note what their strengths and weaknesses are, and see how they can be used to their best advantage.

Economic constraints have, as always, been the major factor of this evolution.
This is certainly the case as far as horticulture is concerned.
But progress is only feasible through a greater knowledge of plant physiology, through technological advances in fertilizers and plastic materials, and through close cooperation between growers, scientists and manufacturers.

International Symposium on Protected Cultivations in the Mediterranean Regions

D. BLANC

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1986.176.8