STRATEGY, TACTICS AND HEURISTICS FOR MANAGING SOLUTES IN HORTICULTURAL CROPS

There is a vast synergy to be gained by managing water, salt and nitrate together, since the accumulation and leaching of mobile solutes is inextricably linked to irrigation practice.
Salt management has generally been considered in a planning framework i.e. the amount of extra water that is required to remove salt from the root zone.
The crop nutrition strategy is likewise based on empirical trials or irregular leaf or soil tests.
Management becomes tactical when regular monitoring reveals how the strategy is playing out through the season.
Monitoring with wetting front detectors against a typology of salt and nitrate patterns in the root zone allows a manager to develop heuristics, or simple rules of thumb, to guide their practice in the face of uncertainty.
Heuristics are useful when our scientific tools are not perfect, the thresholds for action unclear, there is a compromise between accuracy and risk, and we are in danger of being overwhelmed with too much information if we try to measure everything.

VI International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops

R.J. Stirzaker

salt, nitrate, irrigation, wetting front detector, uncertainty

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2011.889.4