Application of Surfactants in Commercial Crop Production for Water and Nutrient Management in Sandy Soil

EDIS ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guodong Liu ◽  
Monica Ozores-Hampton ◽  
Gene McAvoy ◽  
Ben Hogue ◽  
Crystal A. Snodgrass

Water-repellent soils are unable to effectively adsorb or retain water. On these soils, water may simply pool on the surface or may move down preferred pathways, leaving large amounts of soil dry even when a large volume of water is applied. Thus, managing water and nutrients in sandy soils is often challenging. This 6-page fact sheet provides an overview of surfactants and how they may be used to better manage water and nutrients in sandy soils for vegetable and fruit production. Written by Guodong Liu, Monica Ozores-Hampton, Gene McAvoy, Ben Hogue, and Crystal A. Snodgrass, and published by the UF Department of Horticultural Sciences, December 2013. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs1230

Soil Research ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 1201 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Pathan ◽  
L. A. G. Aylmore ◽  
T. D. Colmer

Low ionic sorption capacities and high hydraulic conductivities of sandy soils contribute to the potential for leaching of nutrients applied to these soils. Batch sorption experiments were used to examine NO3–, NH4+, and P sorption/desorption isotherms for Karrakatta sand and Kwinana fly ash. Column experiments assessed leaching of these nutrients from this sandy soil, when amended with 4 rates (0, 5, 10, and 20%, wt/wt) of fly ash. The sorption of NO3–, NH4+, and P was higher for fly ash than the sandy soil. Phosphorus sorption was greatest for unweathered fly ash, followed by weathered fly ash and then the soil; for example, sorption from a solution containing 20 mg/L P was 90%, 28%, and 14%, respectively. Desorption of P was much slower in the unweathered fly ash than weathered fly ash or the soil. Leachates collected from columns containing fly ash amended soil (5, 10, and 20%, wt/wt) generally had lower concentrations of NO3– and NH4+ than leachates from non-amended soil. Prior to adding fertiliser, the concentration of P was greater in leachate from fly ash amended soil than from the native soil, due to fly ash (weathered) itself containing 92.5 mg/kg of extractable P. However, from day 35 onwards, the concentration of P was lower in leachates from soil amended with 10% or 20% fly ash than from non-amended soil. Thus, fly ash amendment retarded NO3–, NH4+, and P leaching in the sandy soil and may therefore be a useful tool for improvement of nutrient management in sandy soils.


EDIS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Dixon ◽  
Guodong Liu

The five Rs of nutrient stewardship is a mnemonic device used to emphasize accuracy and precision for nutrient management so as to apply the (1) right source of fertilizer at the (2) right rate at the (3) right time in the (4) right place with the (5) right irrigation. Because the majority of Florida's soils are sandy, this fifth R is imperative for sustainable nutrient management for commercial crop production. These main points of nutrient management (source, rate, time, place, irrigation) may help enhance sustainability by reducing pollution by eutrophication, nitrogen loss through ammonia volatilization, and climate change from soil greenhouse gas emission. This new 8-page publication of the UF/IFAS Horticultural Sciences Department was written by Mary Dixon and Guodong Liu.https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs1386


HortScience ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 568b-568
Author(s):  
Emily Hoover ◽  
Doug Foulk

Decision cases have been written for use in horticulture education for some time at the Univ. of Minnesota. How faculty involve graduate students in this process will be discussed using the decision case Sunny Hollow Orchard. This decision case concerns the need to make management decisions in a commercial apple orchard planted largely with Haralson, a russet-susceptible cultivar. The growers involved had to decide whether the application of GA4+7 for russet suppression was appropriate for their operation, given all the factors which required addressing. The case was written for use in fruit production or other intermediate-to-advanced undergraduate course. The case can be used to illustrate the decision-making processes involved in operating a commercial crop production enterprise encompassing such issues as cultural and environmental factors, financial viability and pesticide concerns. The case exposes students to a real-life situation and provides them with the opportunity to face a complex but not uncommon situation for producers in the horticultural industry. We will then focus on how this case fit into the entire PhD research program and how we hope to integrate this kind of experience into graduate education.


EDIS ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guodong Liu ◽  
Yuncong Li ◽  
Aparna Gazula

December 18th, 2013 Soil testing and the resulting fertilization recommendations are critical for appropriate nutrient management in commercial vegetable production, but growers and soil experts sometimes speak different languages. This 8-page fact sheet provides a simple conversion method for crop consultants, crop advisors, growers, students, and researchers who are interested in nutrient and water management of crop production. Written by Guodong Liu, Yuncong Li, and Aparna Gazula, and published by the UF Department of Horticultural Sciences, August 2013. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs1229


HortScience ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 498e-498
Author(s):  
S. Paramasivam ◽  
A.K. Alva

For perennial crop production conditions, major portion of nutrient removal from the soil-tree system is that in harvested fruits. Nitrogen in the fruits was calculated for 22-year-old `Hamlin' orange (Citrus sinensis) trees on Cleopatra mandarin (Citrus reticulata) rootstock, grown in a Tavares fine sand (hyperthermic, uncoated, Typic Quartzipsamments) that received various N rates (112, 168, 224, and 280 kg N/ha per year) as either i) broadcast of dry granular form (DGF; four applications/year), or ii) fertigation (FRT; 15 applications/year). Total N in the fruits (mean across 4 years) varied from 82 to 110 and 89 to 111 kg N/ha per year for the DGF and FRT sources, respectively. Proportion of N in the fruits in relation to N applied decreased from 74% to 39% for the DGF and from 80% to 40% for the FRT treatments. High percentage of N removal in the fruits in relation to total N applied at low N rates indicate that trees may be depleting the tree reserve for maintaining fruit production. This was evident, to some extent, by the low leaf N concentration at the low N treatments. Furthermore, canopy density was also lower in the low N trees compared to those that received higher N rates.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1551
Author(s):  
Tamoor Khan ◽  
Jiangtao Qiu ◽  
Hafiz Husnain Raza Sherazi ◽  
Mubashir Ali ◽  
Sukumar Letchmunan ◽  
...  

Agricultural advancements have significantly impacted people’s lives and their surroundings in recent years. The insufficient knowledge of the whole agricultural production system and conventional ways of irrigation have limited agricultural yields in the past. The remote sensing innovations recently implemented in agriculture have dramatically revolutionized production efficiency by offering unparalleled opportunities for convenient, versatile, and quick collection of land images to collect critical details on the crop’s conditions. These innovations have enabled automated data collection, simulation, and interpretation based on crop analytics facilitated by deep learning techniques. This paper aims to reveal the transformative patterns of old Chinese agrarian development and fruit production by focusing on the major crop production (from 1980 to 2050) taking into account various forms of data from fruit production (e.g., apples, bananas, citrus fruits, pears, and grapes). In this study, we used production data for different fruits grown in China to predict the future production of these fruits. The study employs deep neural networks to project future fruit production based on the statistics issued by China’s National Bureau of Statistics on the total fruit growth output for this period. The proposed method exhibits encouraging results with an accuracy of 95.56% calculating by accuracy formula based on fruit production variation. Authors further provide recommendations on the AGR-DL (agricultural deep learning) method being helpful for developing countries. The results suggest that the agricultural development in China is acceptable but demands more improvement and government needs to prioritize expanding the fruit production by establishing new strategies for cultivators to boost their performance.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 407
Author(s):  
Ling Li ◽  
Yong-Jiang Zhang ◽  
Abigayl Novak ◽  
Yingchao Yang ◽  
Jinwu Wang

In recent years, plants in sandy soils have been impacted by increased climate variability due to weak water holding and temperature buffering capacities of the parent material. The projected impact spreads all over the world, including New England, USA. Many regions of the world may experience an increase in frequency and severity of drought, which can be attributed to an increased variability in precipitation and enhanced water loss due to warming. The overall benefits of biochar in environmental management have been extensively investigated. This review aims to discuss the water holding capacity of biochar from the points of view of fluid mechanics and propose several prioritized future research topics. To understand the impacts of biochar on sandy soils in-depth, sandy soil properties (surface area, pore size, water properties, and characteristics) and how biochar could improve the soil quality as well as plant growth, development, and yield are reviewed. Incorporating biochar into sandy soils could result in a net increase in the surface area, a stronger hydrophobicity at a lower temperature, and an increase in the micropores to maximize gap spaces. The capability of biochar in reducing fertilizer drainage through increasing water retention can improve crop productivity and reduce the nutrient leaching rate in agricultural practices. To advance research in biochar products and address the impacts of increasing climate variability, future research may focus on the role of biochar in enhancing soil water retention, plant water use efficiency, crop resistance to drought, and crop productivity.


2012 ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Anita Szabó ◽  
István Gonda ◽  
Inre Vágó

Nowadays the success vegetable and fruit production are unimaginable without regular nutrient management. One of the ways to supply the required nutrients in an environmentally friendly way is the application of composts, which is less widespread so far. Compost doses were applied in biological and integrated apple orchards in cooperation with the Institute of Horticultural Science in the years 2010 and 2011. Different changes were resulted by the compost treatments in the examined parameters in case of both apple varieties (Golden Delicious and Pinova). There is no clear effect of compost on the changes of ash-, total acids, Vitamin C and the sugar content until now, because the improvement of the nutritional indicators takes more time. However significant differences were observed after one year between the apple varieties. Higher ash-, total acids and sugar content were measured in case of the apple variety Pinova, while the measurements showed higher Vitamin C content in case of the variety Golden Delicious.


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