Articles
NET PRIMARY PRODUCTIVITY AND PARTITIONING OF ABSORBED NUTRIENTS IN FIELD-GROWN APPLE TREES
Article number
868_11
Pages
115 – 122
Language
English
Abstract
Modern agriculture requires both, attention to crop yield and quality and to environmental issues.
Among farmers practices, fertilization can play a pivotal role in alleviating environmental pressure without affecting the production.
In this work we present the study of nutrients budget spanning six years of apple trees cultivation and we propose a model for tree nutrient uptake as a tool to guide fruit trees fertilization.
The survey has been carried on a typical apple orchard of the Po Valley, Italy, with Gala/M9 planted in February 1997 at a density of 2632 trees/ha.
Each year trunk diameter, fruit yield and pruning wood production were recorded.
The biomass of abscised leaves was estimated.
A sample of 3 trees was excavated in November 2002. Nutrient concentration has been obtained for fruits, pruning wood, leaves and the whole excavated trees.
In 6 years from planting, trees accumulated 16 Mg ha-1 of dry biomass in the framework, 8.5 in the pruning wood, 28 in fruits, and 8.3 in the abscised leaves.
Nutrients absorbed in higher amounts were Ca (462 kg ha-1) and K (406 kg ha-1), but most of them returned to soil by abscised leaves and pruning wood.
Potassium was mostly partitioned to fruits.
Nitrogen was also absorbed in high amounts (345 kg ha-1). The results of this study have been integrated in an electronic spreadsheet (www.isafruit.org) able to estimate apple tree nutrient uptake.
Among farmers practices, fertilization can play a pivotal role in alleviating environmental pressure without affecting the production.
In this work we present the study of nutrients budget spanning six years of apple trees cultivation and we propose a model for tree nutrient uptake as a tool to guide fruit trees fertilization.
The survey has been carried on a typical apple orchard of the Po Valley, Italy, with Gala/M9 planted in February 1997 at a density of 2632 trees/ha.
Each year trunk diameter, fruit yield and pruning wood production were recorded.
The biomass of abscised leaves was estimated.
A sample of 3 trees was excavated in November 2002. Nutrient concentration has been obtained for fruits, pruning wood, leaves and the whole excavated trees.
In 6 years from planting, trees accumulated 16 Mg ha-1 of dry biomass in the framework, 8.5 in the pruning wood, 28 in fruits, and 8.3 in the abscised leaves.
Nutrients absorbed in higher amounts were Ca (462 kg ha-1) and K (406 kg ha-1), but most of them returned to soil by abscised leaves and pruning wood.
Potassium was mostly partitioned to fruits.
Nitrogen was also absorbed in high amounts (345 kg ha-1). The results of this study have been integrated in an electronic spreadsheet (www.isafruit.org) able to estimate apple tree nutrient uptake.
Authors
F. Scandellari, M. Ventura, D. Malaguti, C. Ceccon, G. Menarbin, M. Tagliavini
Keywords
fertilization, nutrient uptake, nitrogen fluxes, nutrient balance
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