Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 8
Nutrient Management
CHAPTER CONTENTS
Nutrient management is critically important for all orchards and is an area
on which many organic fruit growers concentrate. In the early days of con-
ventional agriculture, when an abundance of cheap nitrogen fertilizers be-
came available, this chapter would have been titled “Fertilization.” Fields
long managed by organic methods or virgin lands were often already rich in
macro- and micronutrients, and little was required to produce a fruit crop
except to dump commercially available, nitrogen-rich fertilizers into the
field. These concentrated forms of plant nutrients eliminated the need to
transport and apply large quantities of fertilizers or to grow green manure
crops, and they fit perfectly into the concept of modern horticulture at that
time.
As our knowledge of soil environments and plant-soil interactions has
grown, the concept of fertilization has also grown. We now recognize the
soil as far more than an inert sponge that holds up the trees and provides a
place for the roots. Soil ecosystems are incredibly complicated and diverse,
and the health of those ecosystems greatly influences the health of the orch-
ard crops. Soil ecosystems are also dynamic, changing with the seasons and
