Gonzalo Allendes at the 8th Tucumán International Seminar: "Without roots there is no life ..."
Gonzalo Allendes Lagos, agronomist and plant nutrition consultant, deals in depth with the aspect of the quality and condition of the fruit based on nutritional monitoring, highlighting the importance and need to analyze and control the virtuous triangle of the soil / water / plant system .
Allendes will be one of the experts who will report at the 8th International Seminar that will take place on June 28 at the Sheraton Hotel in Tucumán, Argentina. On the occasion, the academic will present on "Nutritional strategies to achieve quality and condition of fruit."
Arriving with blueberries of the highest quality to the destination markets depends to a large extent on the correct work done by the producer, which is the basis of the entire chain that ends in the consumer. The quality of the fruit begins to get in the garden, because the system soil / water / plant, is essential to achieve a fruit of good caliber, color, firmness, correct maturity, bloom, flavor, and without mechanical damage or scars. Mishandling at this level can trigger problems of quality and condition that may be impossible to reverse, such as rotting, fungus, dehydration, or parting, among other evils, so that the chances of suffering fruit rejection at destination, or resigning to accept the lowest prices, it becomes a real threat.
There are many factors that affect quality, everything depends on the reality of each property, there is no single recipe, so it is difficult to generalize. The particular problem of each orchard and the management of each producer is not the same, even the same variety cultivated under different conditions can change its result.
Maintaining a well-nourished plant, well watered and pruned, generally allows to achieve a better quality fruit. The important thing is to identify in a timely manner the critical points or the particular problems of each orchard and its causes, and not wait for the damage to be evident and irreparable.
In the case of nutrition, excesses or deficits can affect the formation of the structure of the fruit, can reduce the size and therefore reduce the final volume of production. The excess or lack of nitrogen can affect the firmness of the fruit and therefore, in the post-harvest life of the fruit and its arrival condition. Nutritional strategies must be developed and excess applications of nitrogen, or potassium and calcium levels, must be evaluated, which may affect the caliber, firmness, and post-harvest life and / or ripening of the fruit.
Nutrition must be balanced and focus on what the plant needs. One way of knowing this is to monitor very well the levels applied and those contained in the plant to know if it assimilates them or not.
Nutritional monitoring is very important, so we must talk about the new methodologies of analysis, including calcium linked, of great relevance to the post-harvest quality of crops, or nitrogen in its nitric and ammoniacal forms, to detect possible toxicities due to an excess of ammonium, or blockages in the assimilation of magnesium. It is essential to perform the necessary quantifications to generate efficiency and maximum performance of the nutritional strategies.
- In your opinion, what are the main factors that affect the performance and quality of the fruit?
- Without roots there is no life. Everything that affects that we do not have quality roots will directly affect the result, be it soil preparation, planting, soil structure, irrigation, electrical conductivity, pH, etc. These variables must be audited, have information and take actions for their normal development. The second point is the light, always young orchard with good wood (good pipes) has greater potential. When the previous variables are correctly worked, nutrition takes the qualitative and quantitative leap in productivity and fruit quality.
The academic expert, Gonzalo Allendes Lagos, is the Agronomy Corporate Technical Director of the AGQ Labs Group, and has exhibited his research at various meetings in Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Mexico and Spain, on a wide variety of topics , as New Trends for the Intensive Cultivation of Avocado; Recovery of degraded soils; Nutritional Management of the Table Grape; Considerations in fertilizers for correct use in nurseries; Technical Update and Experiences of New Analytics and Nutrition Monitoring in Cultivation of Interest in Piura; Nutritional Management in Fruit trees Deciduous; Physiology and Stress in Flowers What can we do? A look from nutrition; Technical Update and Experiences of New Analytics and Nutrition Monitoring in Cultivation of Interest in Ecuador; Management of Fertilization in the cultivation of the Table Grape Export, with orientation to the South African reality; Management of Fertilization in Cranberries and Strawberries, among many other topics investigated.
Source: Martín Carrillo O. - Blueberries Consulting
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