Monitoring of Nutrients and Water in Closed (Recycled) Systems for Ornamentals

Monitoring of Nutrients and Water in Closed (Recycled) Systems for Ornamentals.

Keywords: Recycled irrigation and fertigation system, Long-term monitoring, water use efficiency in a closed system, ornamentals.

Abstract:

Long term monitoring of irrigation and fertigation management, overall estimation of the water requirement of potted ornamentals and water use efficiency evaluation in a recycled system was conducted over a period of 18 months. The water source for irrigation was either desalinised water or rain water. The overall annual crop water requirement was found to be, on average, 2 mm/day, and the water use efficiency of the recycled system was 95%. Long term chemical monitoring of the recycled solution showed that in a system where chloride levels are very low, electrical conductivity, rather than chloride concentrations, can be used as a parameter for dilution and disposal of the solution from the system, according to the pre-determined threshold level. High sensitivity to pH fluctuations was observed due to the low bicarbonate levels as a result of using desalinised water and/or rainwater. An additional iron supplement was found to be necessary.

A Lowengart-Aycicegi, M Eisinger, Extension Service, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Western Galilee District, 25212 Oshrat Mobile Post, Israel.

A Avidan, Subject Matter Specialist for Protected Agriculture, Extension Service, Field Service, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, P.O.Box 28, Beit Dagan 50250, Israel.

Y Shefer, A Shefer, B Shefer and V Shefer, ‘Shefer Nurseries’, Michael St., #50, Kfar Bialik 27905, Israel.

10 Pages, 7 Figures, 1 Table.