Summary

The aim of this project is to obtain a more sustainable fertilization strategy for outdoor ornamental crops, without neglecting the need for a high quality end product.
Today there is not enough scientific background on well-reasoned fertilisation available to support growers and specialised advisors, which often results in excessive use of fertilisers and the leaching of nitrogen to ground and surface water. This project anticipates on this problem in three ways:

(1) Season-dependant N uptake patterns for important hardy nursery stock plant groups will be retrieved. These will be obtained by extensive monitoring on trial fields and nurseries.

(2) To get insights in long term N mineralisation out of organic amendments, an incubation experiment will be set up. Also the influence of common cultivation techniques, the use of cover crops and weed control, will be investigated.

(3) Some optical non-destructive N sensors will be tested on trial fields to obtain a good instrument to detect N deficiencies in situ at an early stage. This will result in an decision support tool which can be used to improve N management.

Researcher:

Jolien Bracke