Understanding Plant Nutrition through Sap Analysis

Plant Sap Measurements Webinar Part 1 with Nova Crop Control

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In the webinar hosted by Resource Consulting Services Australia, Eric Hager from Nova Crop Control delved into the intricacies of plant sap analysis, focusing on its significance in understanding and improving nutrient uptake and plant health. The discussion highlighted the historical development of Nova Crop Control since 2003, emphasizing the evolution from basic handheld meters to advanced labs with climate chambers for conducting year-round trials. The importance of timely and accurate sap sampling was underscored to ensure reliable results, which aid in diagnosing nutrient deficiencies and optimizing fertilizer strategies. Challenges such as interpreting results without established target values for certain crops like sugar cane and the impact of transport conditions on sample integrity were also discussed. Overall, the session provided insights into the vital role of sap analysis in fostering sustainable agriculture by enhancing crop health and minimizing pesticide use.

Highlights

Nova Crop Control has advanced from handheld meters to a sophisticated lab with climate chambers. 🌡️
Understanding the mobility of nutrients within plants can help diagnose deficiencies correctly. 🔍
Sap analysis measures real-time nutrient levels, offering an advantage over dry matter tests. 📊
Eric Hager emphasized the importance of sampling leaves early in the morning for accurate results. 🌞
Nova Crop Control focuses on identifying nutrient imbalances to improve crop health sustainably. 🌿

Key Takeaways

Plant sap analysis offers real-time insight into nutrient uptake, unlike traditional dry matter tests. 🍃
Timely delivery of sap samples is crucial to maintain result accuracy. 🕒
Understanding nutrient interactions can prevent misdiagnosis of deficiencies. 🤓
Sap analysis aids in creating more targeted and efficient fertilization plans. 🌱
Nova Crop Control's trials and data collection aim to boost plant health and minimize pesticide reliance. 🚜

Overview

Eric Hager from Nova Crop Control dives into the world of plant sap analysis, unveiling its crucial role in understanding plant nutrition and health. From its humble beginnings with handheld meters, Nova Crop Control has grown into a leading lab equipped with state-of-the-art climate chambers, ready to tackle the challenges of agriculture's future.

The webinar highlights the intricate dance of nutrients within plants. Understanding which nutrients are mobile or immobile can be a game-changer in diagnosing deficiencies. Sap analysis provides a dynamic view of nutrient uptake, allowing for better-informed decisions compared to traditional dry matter tests.

In an engaging session, participants learn about the importance of collecting sap samples early in the morning and how external factors like transport conditions can impact results. With no established target values for some crops, the meticulous work at Nova Crop Control is paving the way for more precise and sustainable farming practices.

Chapters

00:00 - 05:00: Introduction and Overview The chapter provides an introduction and overview of the planned sessions focused on the theory behind nutrient uptake by plants. It also mentions the methodology involving plant sub-analysis.
05:00 - 10:00: Company Background and Evolution The chapter introduces Eric Hager, a consultant at Nova Quop Control. Eric shares his background, highlighting his upbringing on a tomato farm in the Netherlands, which laid the foundation for his career in the agricultural sector. He graduated with a focus on agriculture and spent five years working in greenhouse cultivation before joining No Crop.
10:00 - 16:00: Importance of Target Values The chapter titled 'Importance of Target Values' discusses the role of consultancy in agriculture, particularly for growers in both greenhouse and open field environments, as well as vineyards. The consultancy service extends globally, with clients in Europe, Mexico, the USA, and Canada. The focus is on interpreting analysis results for growers and assisting them with their fertilizer strategies.
16:00 - 23:00: Sample Collection and Testing Process The chapter introduces 'no crop control,' a company involved in plant analysis since 2003. The focus is on understanding what nutrients in the soil are actually absorbed by plants, rather than just what is available.
23:00 - 37:00: Nutrient Mobility and Balance The chapter discusses the factors influencing nutrient mobility and balance, focusing on weather, soil type, and the plant's health. It outlines the progression from using handheld meters for measuring pH, EC (Electrical Conductivity), and specific nutrients like potassium and nitrogen, to the establishment of a larger laboratory, Nova cop control, by B fans and SCH smid in 2009, for more comprehensive nutrient testing on a larger scale.
37:00 - 51:00: Factors Influencing Nutrient Uptake The chapter titled 'Factors Influencing Nutrient Uptake' highlights the importance of establishing a dedicated trial location to gather more data and answer increasing questions from customers. The emphasis is on understanding the relationship between plant health and plant sub-analysis. As the company expands, a new location has been set up in OST to facilitate further growth and research.
51:00 - 63:00: Soil and Environmental Impact The chapter 'Soil and Environmental Impact' discusses the extensive research being conducted in the Netherlands, focusing on the relationship between plant health and plab analysis. The efforts include utilizing climate chambers to conduct year-round trials, aiming to discover significant relations that could improve plant health. This research is highlighted as increasingly important for future agricultural practices.
63:00 - 74:00: Interaction of Nutrients The chapter discusses the importance of reducing the use of pesticides and insecticides by enhancing plant health through nutrient analysis. It highlights the role of plant sub-analysis in understanding what nutrients reveal about a plant's health. The lab primarily focuses on testing plant samples, along with water samples, to analyze nutrition and gain insights into improving plant health.
74:00 - 77:00: Conclusion and Next Steps This chapter discusses the process of testing 21 different parameters for various crops, highlighting the lack of target values for sugar cane. The initial focus should be on comparing healthy and unhealthy plants, as this will provide valuable insights. A brief discussion on approaching the testing of sugar cane without target values was also mentioned, emphasizing the need to adapt the starting methodologies for effective results.

Plant Sap Measurements Webinar Part 1 with Nova Crop Control Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 what hand to you Eric and we can get started yeah great okay thank you for the introduction um yeah for today uh basically we have two sessions planned one of the for today um a lot of theory about the background of nutrition uptake by the plant and uh or by the use of plant sub analysis um wait I'm just going to see how it works
00:30 - 01:00 um now first a small introduction to myself I'm Eric Hager I'm one of the Consultants at Nova quop control uh basically growing up between the tomatoes so my father father had a tomato Farm in the Netherlands and um yeah from there out always been in the agricultural sector graduated uh also in the agricultural sector and uh worked for five years in the greenhouse cultivation before I started for no crop
01:00 - 01:30 control uh where I mainly give uh consultancy to um growers in green houses but also Open Fields uh Vineyards uh and from everywhere over the world so it can so I have a lot of customers in the in Europe but also in in Mexico and the USA and Canada um and it's mainly on the importation of the analysis the The Growers get the results from and helping with the the fertilizer Strat stres
01:30 - 02:00 um well for I will first give a little bit more introduction to uh our company no crop control uh and basically the the whole idea about plant sa analysis started uh in 2003 with u yeah we have something in the soil available uh for the plant but um yeah it's not quite sure what the plant takes up from all the nutrition available in the soil
02:00 - 02:30 because it all relies on the weather soil type um uh the health of the CB itself so uh it started all with some handheld meters like pH EC uh potassium nitrogen and eventually in 2009 uh the owners B fans and SCH smid they established Nova cop control so a big lab uh to test more different uh nutrients and uh on a bigger scale now
02:30 - 03:00 2018 um um we also decided to build our own trial location because Yeah the more data we build up and the more customers we get the more questions we get so um yeah was also important for us to find more the relation between plant health and our plant sub analysis so in the meanwhile the the company grow bigger and uh so we have a new location in OST
03:00 - 03:30 that's in the Netherlands um and also there we have three new climate Chambers where we can do more tests so basically all year round we're doing trials as well to figure out more the relation between plant health and the plab analysis uh and of course with a bigger data buildup yeah we hope to find more relations to that plant Health subject uh because it's going to be important especially in the future with the use of
03:30 - 04:00 less pesticides insecticides Etc it's going to be important to get more insight in and how can we get the plant healthier um uh with the use eventually with the the plant sub analysis and what do all those nutrients tell us about the heal of the plant um so yeah basically our lab is B on mainly uh testing plant sub analysis but we also do water samples but all on nutrition and with every sample uh we
04:00 - 04:30 test 21 different parameters and for most crops we do have Target values uh unfortunately not for sugar cane yet uh I had already a small discussion before we started the presentation on how it would work if we don't have Target values for the sugar cane um I think it's going to be important for the start that um you test mainly healthy plant and unhealthy plant because that's going to give you already the first Insight in
04:30 - 05:00 how the the target values eventually going to be because you're going to see that for the healthy plants you get certain levels for every nutrient and for the unhealthy plants you will see or much lower levels or much higher levels and I will give you the first indication in in what would yeah what the optimum levels would be now also we we also uh build up more data so uh once it's it's possible then uh we'll try to make
05:00 - 05:30 already some sort of Target value uh which going to be helpful for the interpretation of the the analysis um uh so basically uh in the beginning it's going to be a little bit figuring out what what's going to be the optimum values but uh I think within a couple of samples you get already quite a good of an idea in what direction it uh it needs to go um so that's something we need to figure out yeah normally we need at
05:30 - 06:00 least 400 different samples to make Target values that's basically statistically uh the amount you need to make good Target values uh but in main cases we uh we make Target vales when we have at least thousand different samples so that's from different fields different locations um different varieties as well uh so that we are 100% sure that if you start steering on the target values that
06:00 - 06:30 that the target values are are really uh right and the target values are normally not on average so so we really have a a program calculating those Target values with looking to the interactions between the nutrients uh looking to uh all the the the different data points for every nutrient and uh based on that we make our Target values and um every year we try to further optimize it also with the consultancy we do but also with uh all
06:30 - 07:00 the samples we get back where uh we get dist um um samples with deficiency symptoms or excess symptoms then that helps us as well to further optimize the the target values um so yeah until now because that's one of the questions I see already is uh what's the experience with the sugar cane so that's not much on the moment to be honest uh we do have samples I just just check the system but
07:00 - 07:30 it's it's not enough to to make already good Target values but um yeah that's something we can can work on together um yeah explain already we have our own research location um and that we are located in the nland where we are already with almost 50 employees and uh we're active worldwide so we get samples from all over the world so it's coming from yeah Australia of course the the Chile uh
07:30 - 08:00 Brazil uh even for South Africa China India it it comes really from everywhere and I think the most important thing with some sending samples to us is that it arise as fast as possible and we see that mostly within four or five days it's possible to get from Australia samples to the Netherlands uh but it's important to get it at least within one week to or lab and main reason of that
08:00 - 08:30 is because on the moment you start picking the leaves the rotten process starts so the longer it's on transport uh the more what rotten the lease will be and in uh most cases uh it will not affect the results too much but you can imagine that on the moment Lea start to rotten uh ammonium levels will go up and that can affect the pH of the the the plant sa so that are typically changes in the results in the result you're going to see when um a package is long
08:30 - 09:00 on transport so uh try to figure out how it's how it can get in the Nelons as fast as possible uh because the the faster it arrives in our lab the easier it's going to be to get uh or the better the results going to be uh eventually if it arrives in a lab uh the results come back within 24 hours so uh once it gets over here uh we test it in in uh on on the same day as a live on the next day
09:00 - 09:30 you have already the result so that's that's really fast so that helps as well to get uh fast results back even uh if if it's long on transport now it's also possible to get consultancy on the data so where we help with interpretating of the data and uh help with the the fertilizer recipes um yeah and that's basically the introduction on Nova crop control um yeah the subjects I want to discuss
09:30 - 10:00 on those two sessions uh first of all small introduction to PL sub analysis uh and then we're going to dive deeper into the theory behind nutrition uptake so we're going to look to the mobility of the elements uh we're going to look to the nutrient balance and the interactions in the plant uh factors that have influence on the nutrient uptake uh that's going to be the last part for today and next week we're going to use that for the interpretation of the analysis so I got already some
10:00 - 10:30 results from you guys so I'm going to use that next session for the interpretation and uh I bigger part will be about nutrition and plant health and uh the research we did on plant health so that's going to be next week so uh again if you have any questions that just put it on the chat uh box and um or I will on certain moments I will give time to unmute the microphone so that you can ask your questions as well
10:30 - 11:00 yeah PL set analysis in which crops yeah basically we test we can test everything as long if we can get sep out of the leaves so with certain crops that's easier than with others but basically we get all sort different crops uh and we even active in over more than 200 different crops so think about avocado banana uh certain flowers apple tree uh coffee uh tree
11:00 - 11:30 uh grapes uh yeah it can be everything basically as long as we can get the sap out of the leaves I think with sugar cane leaves it's going to be easy as long as we have enough leaves normally between uh 10 to 15 leaves to 20 leaves depending on the size of the leaves is the amount we need to get to be sure to get enough sa out of the leaves um yeah why PL up uh analysis basically I think the first reason
11:30 - 12:00 Growers start with us is that they have or they're seeing a deficiency in their crop or they're having problems in the crop with insects or fungi uh they want to figure out what's the problem and is it related to certain nutrients so uh that's the first reason they start using or PL sub analysis and eventually um it can help them to manage the nutrient uptake uh and improve fertilizer efficiency and with that avoid nutrient deficiencies and toxicities so that it
12:00 - 12:30 eventually improves plant health and vitality will lead to better plant leaf and fruit quality and even improve fruit taste if that can also be a reason to use the plant sub analyses eventually we hope that's going to be a cost-saving to Optimum plant growth health and fruit quality so of course uh our samples cost money uh but eventually if it can help to get the crop healthy use uh uh less fertilizers or be more
12:30 - 13:00 efficient on that uh it's going to lead to a healthier plant and that will save you uh money as well So eventually that's what we hope with a plant sub analysis to get more insight in your own quop in the plant health and to improve the plant Health um now which nutrients do we test uh basically uh 21 different parameters and are all different all nutrients you
13:00 - 13:30 always also bring or can bring with your uh fertilizers but we also test the total sugars and total sugars is different from bricks levels so with bricks levels you also measure the starch uh and with total sugars we really measure just the sugars in the leaves so that's uh glucose fructose sucrose all the different sugar forms is what we measure as total sugars uh we measure the E so that basically tells you the about the total nutrient uptake
13:30 - 14:00 we measure the pH of plant SE and with nitrogen um we look to different forms of nitrogen so we look to the we measure the nitrate part we measure the ammonium and we measure total nitrogen and basically total nitrogen are all the different nitrogen forms together so in total nitrogen we measure nitrate ammonium Ura amino acids and uh protan and that's what together is what we call
14:00 - 14:30 Total nitrogen and especially that one is going to be interesting and important uh where we dive de deeper into the the plant Health part uh and that one is going to be very useful as well when we look to uh the relation between plant health and a plant sub analysis because nitrogen always jumps out as being one of the most important ones or or at least that's what we experience uh with in our data and and the discussions we
14:30 - 15:00 have with the Growers um yeah so find the cause of the deficiency so for example we see potato over here and we see some deficiency symptoms and by testing it with a PL sub analysis you will see that in this case the old leav it's showing uh that magnesium is far lower than in this case our Target values so we always show the result with uh the actual levels we also
15:00 - 15:30 show and we show okay these are the uh the minimum Target value this the maximum Target value so then you know okay if the levels are below that level then it's too low if it and if it's on this side it's too high and so it eventually needs to be within the target values we always advise to test young and old Lea separately and the main reason of that is because it tells something about transport of new nutrition from older parts to the
15:30 - 16:00 younger Parts uh but it also tells something about the mobility of the elements because some nutrients or elements are showing a deficiency more in the younger parts and some elements are showing more the deficiency in the older parts so that's why we say also test or test young and old leav separately um I get one question do you have the results from the samples that have been taken yes yeah we have the we have the results of those and I will discuss them
16:00 - 16:30 in the in the next session so that we have the theory background from this session what we're going to use with the interpretation of uh those analysis um the other thing is sometimes that um we might see uh or we think we see uh deficiency levels on the quop like in this case we see uh potassium deficiency and a W starts seeing around
16:30 - 17:00 the same symptoms thinks that that it is potassium deficiency but eventually it turned out to be a born excess so and if we then look to the pl set results we saw that pottassium levels were too high so if this grow adjust uh be proactive uh and and um start increasing his fertilization of potassium because he thinks this is a potassium deficiency his level's going to get even higher when the risk that it's going to block other nutrients in
17:00 - 17:30 uptake um or that it's going to cause imbalance in the plant so sometimes deficiency symptoms look quite similar but it can also turn out that that it was an excess in some cases it's not even clear what kind of deficiency you have so over here we see uh mice and um we see some deficency symptoms on on the right side and grow was not really sure if it's if it's potassium or if it's
17:30 - 18:00 magnesium and he thought it it would be potassium and by doing a plant SE test you see that if you compare the healthy with the unhealthy crop uh that in this case potassium was around the same but that magnesium turned out to be much lower so that eventually this was a magnesium deficiency um yeah and then a lot of questions I often get is what's the difference between a tissue test or a dry metal
18:00 - 18:30 test uh and a plant test basically you have to see it like this that if we look to the minerals in the plant then you have uh available minerals for PL development so that's in the silim and the flu of the vascular system of the leaves and you have fixed minerals so that's in organic compounds and hardly available for plant development so with a plant set measurement we measure mostly the available manuals and just a small part of the fix minerals so it really shows you the current situation
18:30 - 19:00 of nutrient uh the plant can use for its growth and with a dry metal test or tissue test uh it counts the total of both so it's the total uptake by the plant so uh the deficiency is not directly visible so you look more to the history of the uptake so basically if I would compare plant SE test with a dry metal test on the same crop on the same time and we would look to nitrogen for
19:00 - 19:30 example uh then we see with a PLP test that's the the blue line and the dry meta test the red line uh then we see that with a PL test levels start to drop earlier or the earlier sample and what we see with a dry metal test so it's going to take a longer time uh with sampling before you start seeing that certain levels start to drop and if levels if you do a correction on that the levels start to go up again you will say that earlier or faster with a plap
19:30 - 20:00 test uh it's going to take longer before you start seeing that level start to go up again with a dry metal test and the main reason of that is that with a PL up test you look to the actual uptake from the last two or three weeks uh or maybe the first month and with a dry metal test you look more back in time you look more to the history of the uptake over the last uh three four weeks or even longer so um that's also the reason why we started uh doing plant sa analysis
20:00 - 20:30 because we wanted to get more insight on what's happening in the plant right now and not uh to look back on the history of the plant I'm not saying that a dry metal test is not useful to use and that it's uh not a good way to test your leaves but it's just a different way and that's the main reason why we start with plant sub analysis because uh we wanted to know okay what's the current situation of uh or plant and and how the
20:30 - 21:00 plant heal on this moment because then I can react on that um yeah correct sampling is eventually giving the best results and for that a couple of things are important uh one of the main uh factors or what you have to be aware of is that you sample early in the morning and that's best before 9:00 a.m. and the main reason of that is that the plant is still in some sort of West it's
21:00 - 21:30 not affected by the uh Sun or the heat yet especially in your region um it's definitely important to sample as early as possible because you can imagine once it start to get warm and um Sun intensity goes up then uh it will affect the sub scen and that will eventually affect the results so it's best to sample always early in the morning so before 9:00
21:30 - 22:00 a.m. uh test young and old Le separately I explain already because it gives more insight on the mobility of the nutrients but also the transport of nutrients to the plant yeah we have a man for most props on our website we don't have that for sugar cane but that may be something we can discuss as well which leaves to take and uh how many leaves we need uh that we create some sort of manual also for for sugar can uh sample leaves without the patal uh
22:00 - 22:30 because patal are for transport so we only need the leave blade and avoid side Parts head of the field because eventually the first crops are always more influenced by uh the sun wind and and temperature so always take uh plants who are representing uh the field uh so walk in the field for couple of meters and start
22:30 - 23:00 taking samples over there because it will um give you more representing uh uh crop than then taking taking the first couple of plants in the row on the field yeah s efficiency leav separately from healthy leaves especially now in the case of sugar cane because it gives you a better Insight in uh what would be the optimum levels for the healthy plant uh comp to the unhealthy plant and best is free from
23:00 - 23:30 due moist or dirt or when you did a folio application then sample at least one week after you did the Folly application sometimes that's not not always possible but the main reason why we asked to send it free from from du moist or dirt or any folio application is that it will affect the results so you can imagine when we receive the leaves and it's all wet because of the moisture yeah then on the moment we press the sap out of the lease also the
23:30 - 24:00 the the moisture the water on top of the leaf will get into the sap which will affect the results that's the same with a folio application if you just did a folio application uh that will always be as residue on the leaves but we need to press the sap out of the lease so also everything what is on top of the lease will get within the sap so you might think if you did for example a magnesium sulfate application uh oh wow my magnesium and sulfate level are really high so that that it really worked but
24:00 - 24:30 it Mo there's a big chance that it is because of residue on the leaves so be aware of that that it can affect the results um yeah I get one question should we take the the mid rip out of the sample no that's that's not necessary I think I check the the the lease of the sugar cane I think uh we can we we need the whole Le so you don't need to cut anything out of the leaf I
24:30 - 25:00 think just sending the lease will be will be fine Eric there's also a question just about that from Liam around yes uh the data from sugar can sugar research Australia uh does sugar resarch Australia have data for plant Target vales that we can utilize yeah not sure uh um if if you have already some some own
25:00 - 25:30 Target values but um yeah if there's already some research on on other uh type of measurements that can always be useful to have at least some insight in um you what the difference in levels could be but be aware that every lab every lab has its own testing method so uh even if if you would do SE analysis with other lab you will still
25:30 - 26:00 get different results because it all depends on the way of uh pressing the saot of the leaves and and the type of machines using so I think you really need to develop own Target values in this case and that other data for model Labs or scientific studies are not not always useful uh for the interpretation of your own analysis
26:00 - 26:30 uh yeah use the right materials we would advise to use our labels uh and the main reion of that because once it arrives in a lab uh we just need to scan the the the label and it's in our system already and then we have all the information about location cultivation uh so the Varity plant part Etc so uh we got we got we get a lot of samples handw and and sometimes that's difficult to read especially when it has
26:30 - 27:00 been on on transport or the label became wet then uh yeah we do we cannot get all the information from from the label so always try to use all labels because then we have the information already in our system yeah don't send samples in this way to us uh because eventually that will uh affect the results so for example in a hand Cove there's always some uh Coke or calcium layer on the
27:00 - 27:30 inside so that will affect the results yeah water samples we receive them like almost weekly in a Coca-Cola bottle or Fanta bottle yeah that that will definitely affect the results you maybe know that for yourself if you empty that Coca-Cola bottle and you refill it with water and you taste it it still still tastes like Coca-Cola so that that will eventually affect the results yeah I use clean bags uh to send samples to was uh best the Ziploc bags where you can press
27:30 - 28:00 the air out of the bags and and don't send it in a old cocoa peed bag or two weeks ago we received uh samples in a calcium nitrate bag so you cannot imagine that somebody is so stupid to send it in a calcium nitrate bag because eventually yeah his calcium and nitrate levels were exploding on the analysis but yeah we we get them in in in that way so um always use clean materials and
28:00 - 28:30 and not paper bags because that also will dry out the the the leaves so clean empty materials because uh everything you use uh what is what is dirty can affect the results uh yeah I kep one question will there be a variance a variance of Target values between different varieties um I don't think that that that there's
28:30 - 29:00 going to be very big differences between the varities but there can be differences so I think the average and that's what we see with most crops the the average Target values will stay the same so the need of the crop is for every Varity the same but there are differences in uptake so we see for maybe this Varity has more problems with the Zing uptake and maybe other Varity has more problems with this copper uptake and so there are always differences and and how the plant or the
29:00 - 29:30 Varity takes his nutrients up and uh so it it can be that there are differences but the actual need of the crop sort of the Varity is is for everyone for all of them the same so uh you don't yeah you don't need to make different Target values for different varieties you can expect that they will be the same for all of them okay that was basically the the introduction part to planab analysis and
29:30 - 30:00 uh some background on uh plan sa analysis and now we're going to dive more deeply into the theory uh and the first part I will start is uh the mobility of the elements um yeah first I get I see another question do you wear gloves to collect the samples um it's not directly necessary but um yeah it's advis to to to use
30:00 - 30:30 gloves because eventually if you with your hand you use or before you took the samples you been uh in a fertilizer bag or if you've been to the toilet and your the ammonium levels will go up so no it's it's better to um to use glowes but it's not really necessary it's not that it's going to affect the results when you're not using gloves as long if your uh hands are not dirty or wet because of
30:30 - 31:00 something you did before um so mobility of the elements uh eventually once inside the plant nutrients are transported to where they are needed and that's typically the growing points so once Incorporated by the plant some elements can be immobile While others can be remobilized so immobile elements essentially get locked in place and that's where they stay and those that can be remobilized leave the original location and move to areas of
31:00 - 31:30 Greater demand so knowing which are mobile or immobile is is helpful with diagnosing the the deficiency symptoms that's also why we say test young and old Le separately for the best inside and what is going on in the plant and each deficiency looks different but some different deficiencies are quite similar so for example magnesium or manganese yeah maybe on this pi picture it's showing uh uh quite a different symptom
31:30 - 32:00 but in a lot of different crops it can look quite similar so then a position in the plant can tell you more about what kind of deficiency it might be because a magnesium deficiency always starts on the older leaves and a manganese deficiency mostly starts on the younger leaves so that can be helpful to diagnosing okay I see some symptoms on the on the younger Le so that it might be manganese and if you see it more in
32:00 - 32:30 the olderly that it's most probably magnesium uh so in the plant we have mobile minerals we have medium immobile minerals and we have immobile minerals and basically the mile minerals are magnesium phosphorus potassium and nitrogen so if you get a deficiency of one of these nutrients it will always start in the older leaves uh and there are immobile minerals so like Boron
32:30 - 33:00 calcium iron and sulur so if you get a deficiency of one of these nutrients then you always starts in the younger Parts in the younger leaves of the plant so how does that work so basically when the roots cannot deliver enough of the mobile minerals like magnesium phosphorus potassium or nitrogen uh then the young Le will take these nutrients out of the old leaves so
33:00 - 33:30 from the old leaves it will be ret transported or remobilized to the younger parts so if you take young and old Leaf samples then you will see that on the young leaves the levels are might still within the target Val or the levels are still good but in the old Le levels start to drop and that's your first indication that levels uh are that the uptake is getting too low so when old Le for the mobile minerals uh getting below the Young and start to go down that's a sympt or that's an
33:30 - 34:00 indication that the uptake is getting too low um now it's the same when for example food start to develop um then uh there's a higher need for example of potassium and if there's not enough available in the soil then the food's going to take it out of the older parts or the older leaves so it's going to be transported from the older parts to the younger parts and that's why our deficiencies always starts in the older
34:00 - 34:30 leaves um same with for example with in the case of potatoes so and if those cubes start to use more potassium it's the same story if there's not enough uptake by The Roots it also going to take it out of the older parts and not out of the younger parts so the crop always try to Pro protect the growing part by keeping enough up uptake or keeping the levels stable over there in the case of
34:30 - 35:00 the mobile minerals so in the old Le that will be the part where the levels start to drop first um but in the case of immobile minerals then it works differently because in the case of boron calcium but also iron and Su for if there's not enough uptake by the root because there's not enough availability in the soil uh but also when there's not an active
35:00 - 35:30 substream not good enough evaporation or hot pressure then bone calcium iron and sulfur cannot be taken out of the old leaves so if even if there's a high availability in the old leaves it cannot be remobilized and sent to the young leaves so if you look to your plant have analysis and you look to Young and if you look to the old leaves if there's not enough uptake you start seeing the young leaves to drop first so the young leaves start to get to low even though
35:30 - 36:00 old leaves can still be more than high enough it can even be that the old leaves are higher than the target values uh in the case of other crops uh but that the young leaves are lower than the target values so that's really indicating yeah on this moment there's not enough transport to the younger parts or there's not enough uptake uh because of a long H period where uh the plant stops is evaporation uh or there act there's not enough active substream
36:00 - 36:30 and then there's no good transport of born or calcium to the younger part and uh that's where the first deficiency symptoms start so if you get uh a Calcium deficiency or BN deficiency yeah that will always start on the younger leaves and eventually you will see that further on the older leaves but the young leaves that's where it starts to show the first symptoms of of uh a born
36:30 - 37:00 or Calcium deficiency in the case of immobile minerals so and that's basically the the biggest difference between the immobile minerals and the mobile minerals so immobile minerals like born and calcium cannot be remobilized through the plant and in the case of the mobile minerals uh that can be remobilized so it can be transported from the old leaves to the young uh leaves when it's needed for the grow Parts any questions on that one yeah see
37:00 - 37:30 no further question I saw that there's already a handout on uh how to sample the cop so yeah that's that's useful and uh use that one to get inside and how to sample the sugar cane okay then next part is going to be nutrient balance and the interactions in the plant and that one is going to be important and especially with uh without having uh Target values that can be very
37:30 - 38:00 useful because eventually there's always a competition in the plant and that's between the catons so that are the positively charged ions which are calcium potassium magnesium sodium and ammonium and between the anons and that those are the negatively charged ions so that's nitrate chloride sulur and phosphate so basically how does that
38:00 - 38:30 work if we put them all on a balance on a scale then um as long all nutr are been taken up in a good balance then uh that will be fine but on the moment one Kon is higher in uptake than the plant needs then the balance going to be gone and it starts uh competition with the other C so see it a little bit as as this
38:30 - 39:00 tractor as long as he stays on the side of the tractor he can still drive but on the moment she's going to step off then it's going to hit the concrete floor so it's all about balance so basically if for example potassium uptake is higher than the plant needs then it's going to block the uptake of calcium magnesium and even sodium so it's going to block other catons and this is is going to be very useful especially without having Target values because if you see that
39:00 - 39:30 certain levels if you got a couple of samples back and you see that for example your potassium goes up uh compared to other samples and because of that other levels start to go down yeah then that's the first indication that potassium might be too high in the plant and that that's Mo most probably blocking the uptake of of other C catons like calcium and magnesium uh so as an example if if potassium
39:30 - 40:00 uptake is too high uh then it will limit the calcium and magnesium uptake and that happens for example when you used a lot of manual or compost then there's High availability of potassium and then you see that potassium uh uptake goes up and that starts blocking the uptake of of other catons uh but sodium is also on that list so also a cathon and most crops
40:00 - 40:30 need just a small amount of sodium so if you start seeing your sodium levels start to increase in the plant or start building up in the plant yet there's a big chance that it's going to affect the uptake of calcium magnesium and potassium so always be aware that sodium can affect on a nutrient uptake and to be aware or to check where the sodium is coming from so is it coming from uh the Water Source you're using so if uh the
40:30 - 41:00 water quality you're using containing a lot of sodium or if it's coming from certain fertilizers especially some organic fertilizers contain quite a lot of sodium so they can easily build up in the soil and eventually in the plant uh or by the use of city water for example and some cases uh that can can bring already uh6 MMO of sodium and that can easily build up in the soil and it can easily build up in the plant and
41:00 - 41:30 eventually when it's getting too high in the plant then it can affect the uptake of uh your potassium calcium and magnesium uptake um now too high sodium is never good uh for the quop and especially not for the root Roots because uh too high sodium will eventually affect uh first of all the root hairs and especially the root hairs are so important for your calcium uptake so if it's getting too high in the soil then it affect the root
41:30 - 42:00 quality and eventually that can also affect the nutrion uptake yeah once we did a simple trial easily just uh four different treatments from no sodium and we build it up to 5 10 and 20 mol of sodium and you see already what kind of effect that had on the the root quality on the root growth uh and eventually if you if you take plant sub analysis from these crops they you see that basically all nutrients uh
42:00 - 42:30 started to drop because of uh less Roots so less Roots is also less nutrient uptake uh and that too high sodium basically affect all the nutrient uptake so always be if you see high sodium in plant sub analysis that's mostly a bad sign for auto nutrient uptake uh to give another example on this this is in cucumber and uh greenhouse and you don't need to know anything about cucumbers you don't need
42:30 - 43:00 to know anything about irrigation of of cucumber but basically uh the sodium in his irrigation water was building up and was already high over the whole season eventually it was building up in his drain water that it's the dotted line and drain water is basically the water what's coming back from uh the plants what they reuse again and over the whole season um he tested the plant app young leaves that's the dotted line and the
43:00 - 43:30 straight line are the old leaves and over here you see the minimum Target value and the maximum Target value for this quop um over the whole season his calcium uptake wasn't already great it could be much better and he finally got this calcium better in the plant and then when sodium got too high you see suddenly a big drop of calcium and that eventually led to uh bad fruit quality so always be aware that once sodium is
43:30 - 44:00 getting too high it will directly affect the the other C you not take and especially calcium yeah potassium calcium ratio um not sure what it's going to what it will will tell you about sugar cane but in the case if we look to fruit quality then the pottassium calcium ratio is very important because if we compare it with fruit then the outer tire that would be uh the skin of the fruit so
44:00 - 44:30 that's for the that's calcium that's for cell strength and healthy strong skin of the fruit and the other tube that would be potassium so that's where you fill the fruit with water and uh having a good balance of potassium and calcium uh is important I will tell you a lot about the fruit quality and case or sugar cane it can also be important and interesting because potassium and calcium are two
44:30 - 45:00 very important nutrients uh for the plant and also for the plant health so having them in a good balance um yeah will help the heal of the plant because if it's out of balance if potassium is too high yeah you then you know that it's going to block the calcium uptake but also if the calcium is too high then potassium uptakes going to be lower and both of them uh is what you need in a good amount uh to have a healthy plant now this is we'll keep this short
45:00 - 45:30 but we see especially uh with uh plants where we have fruits that if your calcium is too high then it will lead to in this case tomatoes with a very thick skin almost wooden skin uh if potassium is too high then uh we get those uh split fruits fruits start to collapse because too much potassium too much water in the fruit so it starts to explode yeah too low of potassium is now eventually you need potassium for the
45:30 - 46:00 filling of the fruit with enough water so the fruit start or stays smaller or they don't color good enough and if calcium is not enough then the outoor skin of a Pepper or apple is not strong enough and it will more easily rotten which we know as Blossom andw so pottassium calcium R especially or fruits or trees with fruits uh um is very important to look at not sure what it will tell us about sugar cane but
46:00 - 46:30 definitely important or interesting to to keep an eye on that one because it might tell well something about the the food or sorry the the heal of the club um now another example of the interactions between the kons and that's mainly because uh or a good example of this is uh uh over here we see eight different apple trees uh Fields so eight
46:30 - 47:00 different fields and uh the green line is one of the fields and was the highest one with potassium so in that field the pottassium uptake uh was higher than the other Seven Fields And if we then look to the calcium uptake then again we see the green line but now being the lowest over the whole season so because the potassium was too high in the plant yeah that was blocking the the the calcium uptake and that's why the calcium uptake
47:00 - 47:30 stays low stayed lower uh compared to the other Seven Fields not only that if we then look to the potassium calcium ratio you see again this green line being much higher than the other Seven Fields and that eventually led to bad fruit quality um and in this case this farity of Apple was very sensitive for magnesium deficiency see and that's what we were seeing as well that on all eight
47:30 - 48:00 Fields magnesium being has been on the low side over the whole season but again the green line uh showed the lowest magnesium uptake because potassium was blocking the magnesium and that eventually even led to a magnesium deficiency so yeah I see one question are cathon imbalances more critical than Target values uh not it's not more critical but it definitely helps to figure out what the what the target
48:00 - 48:30 value is going to be because if you see that compared to other results uh on one of the results your potassium for example is much higher and because of that you you see that the calcium and magnesium levels are lower yeah that's already a first indication for you okay then potassium is most probably above the Target or the need of the plant and that's the reason that it's blocking my magnesium and calcium up take so um that's also how we look to our Target
48:30 - 49:00 values and how we make our Target values we also look to those caon interactions uh but as well to the Anon interactions because that will tell you already a lot about what eventually the target value is going to be because we always see that blocking effect between those catons so if one of them is too high it will eventually lead to a lower uptake of other cathon can also be the other way around so if for example uh your magnesium availability in the soil is
49:00 - 49:30 very low then of course your magnesium uptake is going to be lower as well and if your magnesium uptake is lower and then there's more room for calcium or potassium so most probably you're going to find higher magnesium or higher sorry higher calcium or higher potassium up levels in the plant uh because of the lower magnesium uptake so yeah you always try to find a balance especially between potassium calcium and uh
49:30 - 50:00 magnesium so uh there's always a good interaction between those three yeah and basically that works the same between the uh anons so uh nitrate nitrogen GoRide phosphorus and suur so same story if one of them is higher in uptake than other Alan then that will uh block the uptake of other Anon so for
50:00 - 50:30 example if there's a Too High glow out uptake because it's high available in the soil then that will lead to a lower uptake of nitrate sulfur and phosphorus so that's also something to be aware of that if you see suddenly high or sorry uh lower uptake of phosphorus or lower uptake of sulfur even though it can be high available in the soil but if it's blocked by a too high uptake of Glide then that's the reason why the levs are
50:30 - 51:00 too low so um we see a lot of cases that uh levels in the soil are more than high enough that it would be more than enough available for the plant but that the other anal is blocking the uptake and that that is still the reason that the levels in the plant are too low so here's a good example of that here again we see uh graphs with some data uh over time and here you see the minimum Target value and the maximum
51:00 - 51:30 Target value of Glide and you see over time that GL has been all the time way too high it has been much higher than the target values and because it was so high it was blocking the phosphorus uptake because here again you see the maximum Target value and the minimum Target value for phosphorus and we see that the glow is blocking the phosphorus and that the phosphorus levels were much lower than the target values even though he was bringing more than enough phosphorus to his plant and there was more than enough
51:30 - 52:00 available the plant was not taking it up because it was blocked by uh the high Glide and once his Glide came down in the plant you saw a better availability and a better upt again of phosphorus so it came back within the target values and if we look to the mobility of the elements yeah phosphorus is mobile so on the moment there's not enough uptake to these will will be lower first uh and will show the lowest levels compared to
52:00 - 52:30 the younger leaves and that's indicating that it's deficient so here you really see the uh effect of anon being too high uh and that's blocking the uptake of other anion sometimes you could also compare that with a uh parking place that if there are 10 places uh for cars and eight places are filled or filled up with Audi then there
52:30 - 53:00 are just two places left for uh Tesla or Rena so if then one Audi drives away then there's another spot available again for U Tesla or Rena so that's how also how you can see it so that just a couple of places uh in the plant for for the anons or for the catons so if uh most of it is filled for example with uh choride yeah then there's not enough place available for
53:00 - 53:30 phosphorus so if you put them all in the circle then we have the C Caton antagonism so the potassium calcium magnesium and sodium and we have the Anon antagonism so nitrate sulfur GoRide and phosphorus so again one of them higher an uptake that will lead to a lower uptake of one of the others in the group but then we also have the trace elements and also there we see anistic interactions because if we look to iron manganese zinc and copper yeah if one of
53:30 - 54:00 these getting too high in the plant then that will also lead to a lower uptake of other uh Trace element so for example if your manganese is too high an uptake yeah that will lead to a low uptake of iron zinc and copper the only tree where we don't see antagonistic interactions is with mum born and silica those three are not showing the antagonistic interaction they do help uptake of other
54:00 - 54:30 elements so bone and silica for example help a better calcium uptake uh andinum helps with the conversion of nitrate to proteins but they do not block other uh nutrients in in uptake so this circle can be very helpful because it uh shows you very clearly the antagonistic interactions between the the elements so here again so every group uh has his
54:30 - 55:00 antagonistic interactions uh so for the catons for the anons and for the trace elements I get one question what would be the best action to improve the phosphorus in this example yeah it depends a little bit on uh why the glow is too high so that's mainly the first reason so if you look back to this example uh in this case it was a greenhous so they could just change the Fertilization in the irrigation water but the first question is going to be
55:00 - 55:30 why is my Glide this High where's that coming from is it high available in the soil yeah then it is difficult because you first need to get the glow levels down and uh that will take a while um but if it's coming from certain fertilizers or if it's coming from the the water type you're using so you're using well water with high availability or of GoRide in that water you then check if there's a possibility to to
55:30 - 56:00 reduce the input of GoRide uh and otherwise yeah phosphorus why is it too low yeah if it is blocked by the Glide um even though it's it's high enough available yeah then you first need to get your Glide down otherwise uh it it doesn't make any sense to bring more phosphorus in this case because it will stay or it will keep them uh will be blocked by the Glide that's why we a lot of cases see that a grower say sees
56:00 - 56:30 that his phosphorus uptake is too low then his first thoughts are okay then I need to bring more phosphorus but as long the Glide is blocking the phosphorus then it doesn't make sense to bring more phosphorus because eventually it's not going to help a better uptake so you first need to check how to get your glow down and yeah that that to how to get it down there can be a lot of solutions for that uh but it all depends on why the levels are too
56:30 - 57:00 high yeah again another question on that would a fol application be able to overcome the imbalance yeah in some cases it can help but it's mainly on the the miners so the trace elements there we see that a correction can help to get the levels up um it can help on certain main elements but eventually a Folia is just just a small correction because the the whole amount for for the main
57:00 - 57:30 elements uh is quite a lot in the plant so doing a correction just by a folio or will just make a small correction but yeah it it can definitely help but the biggest effect is what we see on the on the trace elements but as long the there's one element blocking uh another element yeah you first need to check how can I get that blocking element down or where are the possibilities to get that one
57:30 - 58:00 down yeah and if we look to the antagonistic interactions you might be or you might seen the the murders chart before that's basically or are basically all the different uh interactions which are possible um and if we check then calcium then are not only the catons so magnesium uh potassium uh sodium having a blocking
58:00 - 58:30 effect on calcium but also sulfur manganese uh nitrogen phosphorus born iron zinc also they can have a blocking effect or can have an effect on the uptake of calcium so basically if whe one element is way too low in the plant yeah then that can affect all the other nutrients because for example if your calcium is way too low then that can can lead to a high higher potassium uptake or higher magnesium uptake and that can might affect the sulfur uptake and and
58:30 - 59:00 so on like like Domino stones and that's a little bit black and white explained and in real it's not going to be that that bad but um that's the way how it could work or how it can go wrong but be aware that uh the most important interactions are between the catons are between the anons and are between the trace elements so even though are more antagonistic interactions possible um the effect of the other
59:00 - 59:30 nutrients are just small so you hardly see that back in the pl set results so these are really the most important interactions to look at once you start looking to your own results um but I still want to explain some important interactions we definitely see with a PL sub analysis which are important to mention and I think one of the most important ones are or is the effect of phosphorus
59:30 - 60:00 on potassium uptake but also on the trace element uptake because we see very clearly that if your phosphorus uptake is higher than the plant needs that it has a blocking effect on your iron manganese zinc and copper and especially on your iron and zinc uptake so in a lot of cases when there is a iron deficiency or zinc deficiency it's uh not because because uh the low availability in the soil or because it's because of the the
60:00 - 60:30 high pH of the soil but that is because of a too high phosphorus uptake and that that phosphorus is blocking the iron and zinc uptake the same uh it's more difficult to controlate that or to have some control on that on open field but uh if you see very high phosphorus uptake then there's a chance that it's blocking your potassium uptake so that you see a lower potassium uptake because of the high
60:30 - 61:00 phosphorus so we once did a trial on that to see the effect of phosphorus on the pottassium uptake so uh uh again an easy trial so have four different treatments of phosphorus so for no phosphorus build it up to one and a half Mill of phosphorus and we wanted to see the effect on the potassium uptake so uh as we see over here uh we see again the minimum Target value the maximum Target value and we see that the higher the amount of phosphorus we
61:00 - 61:30 brought with the treatment the higher the uptake of phosphorus of course and if we look down to the potassium uptake then we see that the potassium uptake was lower with the uh higher amount of phosphorus so the higher the phosphorus was uh sorry the higher the phosphorus was the lower the uptake of potassium so it was really showing the blocking effect of phosphorus on the potassium uptake uh but but as explained also phosphorus
61:30 - 62:00 has an effect on the iron manganese and zinc uptake so again once we did a trial uh in 2019 uh basically an easy easy Tre uh trial again with seven different treatments with a different input of phosphorus different input of iron and a different input of Manganese or basically we kept manganese on all treatments the same but we had one treatment with much higher input of Manganese because we wanted to see the effect on the iron uptake so we wanted
62:00 - 62:30 to show the the antagonistic interaction of phosphorus on the iron and manganese uptake but we also wanted to show the antagonistic interaction of Manganese on the iron uptake and basically if we look to the most important results then if you look to treatment one and treatment four then we had the amount of iron and the amount of manganese were exactly the same but on treatment one we put more phosphorus
62:30 - 63:00 into the water and then you see that higher the phosphorus so in this case the phosphorus was seven times higher in uptake in the plant than uh treatment four and if we look down to the iron uptake and the manganese uptake even though the in the treatment amount was the same the uptake was almost six times higher um uh uh where that the phosphorus input was lower so the low the lower the phosphorus the better the iron uptake
63:00 - 63:30 was and the better the manganes uptake was so here you really clearly saw the effect of phosphorus on the trace element uptake and you even saw that with the coloration of the the leaves uh so the lower iron uptake and the lower maganese uptake let eventually to deficiency symptoms and we didn't saw that on the lease where the iron and manganese was much higher and on our other treatment where
63:30 - 64:00 we kept phosphorus the same and where we kept iron the same yeah we wanted to see the effect of manganes on the iron uptake and also here we see that if manganese uptake is higher or input is higher then that will lead to lower iron uptake so we saw much more deficiency on the leaves but also a lower level because the maganese was blocking the iron update so here with some simple trials we do
64:00 - 64:30 sometimes in in our lab uh we can show what kind of effect in this case the phosphorus or the manganese has on the iron uptake um in this case uh after a couple of weeks the maganese even got too high in the plant so it got almost two times higher than the than the maximum Target value and that eventually led to a maganese excess so if you ever see on the younger leaves burnt veins on the inside then that can come from too high
64:30 - 65:00 manganese yeah and then uh born and silica uh which can help the calcium uptake uh so Al silica does not directly promote the calcium absorption it can indirectly contribute to better calcium absorption in the plant because silica strengthens the cell walls and improving the structure and stability of plant cells and this can result in uh increased resistance to abiotic stress
65:00 - 65:30 such as drought salt stress and heat as well as biotic stresses such as diseases and pests so when a plant is healthier and more resistant to stress it can absorb nutrients including calcium more efficiently so what we often see is that your silica level that if your silica levels are good within the in the plant that it will lead to an easier take of calcium same for bone bone plays an
65:30 - 66:00 important role in the cell wall struct structure and membrane uh Integrity so it can direct indirectly influence calcium absorption so having a good bone and a good silica uptake can lead to a better uptake of calcium um yeah then if we look to nitrogen and we'll discuss that more on the next session but nitrate or n total
66:00 - 66:30 nitrogen what we measure uh is very important or good indicator of plant health so and if you want to help that process of getting nitrate and ammonium converted into proteins then you need a good uptake of magnesium for example because magnesium uh helps to convert the nitrate into proteins and the same for sulfur also sulfur helps with getting nitrate better converted into proteins
66:30 - 67:00 or getting ammonium better converted into proteins now GoRide is also uh important in that way or it's not really important to bring with your fertilization but basically we see that if your Glo is uh within the target values yeah it will have some blocking effect on nitrate but mainly I wouldn't look too much to this one to help to get the nitrate levels down um but your mum even though it's just a
67:00 - 67:30 small nutrient and we often are not aware about this one but M mum is a key element in getting uh nitrate or ammonium converted into proteins so you really need a good mum uptake to get a the best conversion of nitrate or ammonium into proteins so if you see or if you get a good magnesium Su for or mum uptake then you know okay that will help to get my nitrate converted into
67:30 - 68:00 proteins as good as possible I got one question how important is the order or timing of application in these antagonistic effects yeah do it's difficult to give an answer on that because it depends a little bit on why uh uh one element is too high an uptake or too low an uptake um but mainly uh yeah you need to react already
68:00 - 68:30 before you start seeing deficiencies or you need to react before you see that levels starting to get too low uh and still then doing a correction it will take time before levels go up in the pl so even with a folio application uh it will take at least one to two weeks before you see a change in the plant and uh if if the deficiency is really clear available or levels are really way too low yeah will take even longer before you see a change in the plant and
68:30 - 69:00 especially with Open Fields doing a correction or even making a correction in the soil yeah that will take more than just a couple of weeks to to get things changes that you get a better uptake so it depends a little bit on why nutrients are too high or too low and how long it will take before you can can get the levels back up or back down again and it also depends on the weather it depends on on the p age of the soil it it and yeah there are a lot of different factors which can influence
69:00 - 69:30 the nutrient uptake eventually so uh there's always something to be aware of uh in in checking why some of the levels are too high or too low in uptake yeah and that brings us also to that important point that uh and to the factors that influence the mimal uptake because eventually if we look to uh uh nutrient uptake then there are a lot of factors which can influence that uptake
69:30 - 70:00 of course the amount of fertilizers you bringing or the foli application you're doing uh the pH of the soil is very important for nutrient uptake the EC so the amount of nutrients in the soil is important sunlight humidity oxygen levels in the soil uh CO2 levels temperature but also micro yeah that are all factors which can have influence on the nutrient uptake and there always something to be aware of so
70:00 - 70:30 don't only look to the mobility don't only look to the antagonistic interactions also check if you see certain levels in the plant too low or too high yeah did it come from maybe uh a very high Trace element uptake because of a low pH of the soil or a low uptake because of heat stress or uh high humidity uh low oxygen levels in the soil or low uh microl life in the soil that are all
70:30 - 71:00 factors which can influence the nutrient uptake and that's always something to be aware of so if we look to the different factors that can influence the M uptake then pH is an important factor of course the imbalance in minerals the soil type which you have are you growing on a sandy soil or on Clay um or soil with high or with low organic matter that all have an influence on the nutrient uptake
71:00 - 71:30 yeah which plant stage are you in is it still a young plant or is the crop already uh big or in the end stage yeah that will have influence on the uptake the release of fertilizer so if you use any organic fertilizer so the moment moment of application with when it becomes available for the plant soil structure and even rooting is important and very important factor climate temperature light moisture and oxygen and eventually if you use any form of irrigation water or uh with FY
71:30 - 72:00 application the water you're using yeah what's the amount of bicarbonate in that water so the pH of that water the oxygen in that water even uh if there are some aope or anope uh bacterias in the water will eventually influence uh or have influence on the nutrient uptake so I'm going to discuss a couple of them uh with examples and eventually pH of the soil
72:00 - 72:30 is very important because we just see that if the pH of the soil or the lower the ph goes the easier the uptake of iron copper manganese zinc but also Cobalt and nickel uh otherwise the higher the pH of the soil the easier the uptake of malanum now in the case of phosphorus we see that if pH getting too low there's a more difficult uptake but if pH getting tooo high phosphorus is getting fixed and also not available for the plant
72:30 - 73:00 anymore for uptake uh another interesting one is aluminium because we see clearly that if levels of or if the pH is getting too low that can also happen for example if your so is saturated with water it will influence the ph and that can lead to a sudden uptake of aluminum so if you ever see on the results very high levels aluminium yeah then that will the possibility is
73:00 - 73:30 that it's because of uh some under R process in the soil or a certain drop of pH which led to a much higher up take so pH is very important to be aware of and here's another slide where you see uh the optimum pH the soil needs uh for a good uptake uh but to get give an example of of that I have two different Growers and grower a was Dripping uh manganese with
73:30 - 74:00 27 micro but with a pH of his drip water of six and grower B was Dripping uh with amount of Manganese of 50 micro but his drip pH was just 5.2 so you would expect when we wouldn't look to the pH of the drip water that the grower a would have a better uptake but eventually if we look to the plant have uptake then or the uptake in the plant that we saw that grow a was having a much lower uptake
74:00 - 74:30 than grower B uh and it all came because of that high pH of the drip water so the higher the pH the less available manganese is for uptake for the plant and we clearly saw that back in the results so that the lower the drip or the sorry the higher the pH the more difficult the uptake of of manganes was yeah another example of uh one of the trials we once did over here this was a
74:30 - 75:00 trial where we uh tested a crop or we had two different treatments for this crop with extremely high nitrate uh the red line and extremely low nitrate which was the blue line and uh we saw that eventually in the drain water so the water was coming back from the plants that the higher the nitrate the more bicarbonate the plant produces and gives uh with the roots so and the higher the
75:00 - 75:30 bicarbonate the higher the pH goes around the roots and we also saw that back in the drain water that the pH was higher and we directly saw that back on the manganese uptake so the manganese uptake even though the treatment was exactly the same but was much lower because of the high pH uh eventually around the roots because of the higher bicarbonate so the high the nitrogen levels in the plant the higher the bicarbonate levels going to be around the roots and the more difficult Trace
75:30 - 76:00 element uptake going to be like iron manganese zinc and copper um and of course soil type and the influence on the nutrient uptake so yeah I think it's it's just clear that uh if we would test uh the same crop on uh three different substrates in this case so Pete Cocos or soil then of course you can expect a difference in uptake interestingly if you're having a
76:00 - 76:30 soil which having a high organic matter then uh nutrients or elements like mum is more difficult than uptake so Cocos contains a lot of organic matter and uh that fixes the mum so the more organic matter you have the more difficult mum uptain take interestingly but that's something I'm going to discuss more next session TRS are the sugar levels and we
76:30 - 77:00 see very clearly that sugar levels are higher in plant sa once nitrate is lower so the lower nitrate is the higher the sugar levels and the main reason of that is that the higher the nitr levels in the plant the higher the water uptake in the plant and uh as well and the more water in the plant Yeah the more it dilutes the sugar so that's why we see very clearly an interaction between the sugar levels and the nitrate levels so the lower the nitrate mostly the higher
77:00 - 77:30 the sugars or the the higher the nitrate the lower the sugars uh and that's why sugars can tell something about the health of the plant first of all it can tell something about the photosynthesis because the higher the sugars the more photosynthesis normally uh but also the higher the sugar nor the lower the nitrate levels so this intera is very important but I'm going to explain more on that in in the next
77:30 - 78:00 session um yeah then soil life and the influence on nutrient uptake here's an example of uh the plants chemia and they use bio stimulation so on the left side you see the twet quop and on the right side the untreated crop now you saw very clearly much more root development and uh compared comp to the untreated crop and if we then look to the plant side results then we saw an average higher
78:00 - 78:30 uptake of almost 24% over all all nutrients so of course the more Roots the plant makes the better the nutrient uptake but the question in this case is is a higher uptake also better plant health so in the first case you see a better growth more Leaf surface more flowers so basically that's better for the heal of the plant but if this grower doesn't change something on his fertilization then his with more more
78:30 - 79:00 Roots there's also going to be an easier uptake of nitrate and we saw that this nitrate uptake was almost 40% higher and we know that the higher the nitrate the more susceptible the plant is for insects and fungi diseases so and that's in some cases what we see so grower start using any bio stimulation and in the first case they see an effect they see better growth they see better Leaf color but if you don't change anything on your fertilization so you
79:00 - 79:30 see in your plants that nro levels start to go up and getting too high yeah that can make your plant uh more sensitive for insects and fungi diseases again so always be aware that if you use any form of Bio stimulation um that if you get a better up take and you get a better root development yeah that you have to change your fertilization on that because otherwise level can get eventually too high which is not good for the hell of the plan so in 90% of all cases using
79:30 - 80:00 bio stimulation will lead to a better heal of the plant but always just be aware that levels can also get too high because of the certain change of root development so yeah roots are very important eventually for the uptake um and I always compare that basically with a big mug of beer so uh the more Roots a plant has the easier you can drink the beer because the more Roots Yeah the
80:00 - 80:30 more uh it can take nutrients up but if you do if your plant doesn't have enough Roots then uh it's the same like drinking beer from a straw so uh it will take much longer to get the beer out of the glass so uh that's an easy way uh to compare uh root development basically um yeah oxygen influence on nutrient uptake also important it's not something
80:30 - 81:00 we are most often aware of but eventually Roots need enough oxygen to burn sugars optimally and with that released energy they remain active so that they are able to absorb fertilizers so that the plant can grow and produce so so life also benefits from the sufficient oxygen and there a lot of causes of a lack of oxygen so that can be a a soil saturated with water or too high soil temperature and with a lack of
81:00 - 81:30 oxygen the plant not only receives less nutrition but also becomes more susceptible to root diseases due the less root growth and basically that was also one of the trials we once did where um we tested a crop or on water we have oxygen pumps in the water and in one of those treatments we didn't use any oxygen and just see the difference and it was just on four days the difference on root development just by uh enough
81:30 - 82:00 oxygen and not enough oxygen and be aware that temperature has influence on this so the higher the water temperature or the soil temperature the um uh what did I want to say yeah the higher the temperature the lower the oxygen availability and you see already that around 15 to 25° the availability or of or the dissolvement of oxygen is already much
82:00 - 82:30 less so I can imagine in the region you're living that if you get very extreme temperatures and the soils uh starts to to warm up to heat up then that will influence the oxygen levels and that will eventually influence also the nutrient uptake so definitely be aware of that um yeah see I have six seven minutes left but I'm going to manage manage that
82:30 - 83:00 it's almost the end of the the presentation yeah then one question have you eaten enough or are you still hungry now basically um that's that's always something to be aware of that if you look to your soil samples and you see high ability High availability or if you see low availability will it also mean that there's going to be a low uptake so otherwise if you eat a play the spaghetti or your play of spaghetti is empty yeah are you still hungry or are
83:00 - 83:30 you or did you had enough and that's often what we see so for example if your potassium in the soil is low available then you might think okay I need to get my potassium up because otherwise it's going to be uh too low for the plant so the plant is going to be hungry but in a lot of cases it doesn't have to be that that way so it can still be that with uh a empty plate yeah the plant had enough and that you don't need to bring more potassium so always look to the
83:30 - 84:00 plant sub analysis and this is a good example of that so uh this is a Peppa grower where we have his irrigation water and is drain water so that's water what's coming back from the plant so you don't need to know anything about irrigation of peppers but just to let you to show you that uh from a certain moment there in The Slap there was no potassium available anymore so this girl would normally think okay the plate is
84:00 - 84:30 empty so the plant will be hungry so I have to bring more potassium but eventually when we looked into the plant we saw more than enough uh uptake so that he didn't need more potassium so that's something um to be aware of that by using soil samples it's very useful and very important to use it or to to test your uh your field but it doesn't tell you the whole story it all depends on how the plant takes those
84:30 - 85:00 nutrients up it's a same with variety differences between uh uh in the same crop if you would have two different varieties on the same substrate same climate condition same fertilization you can still see differences and uptake just by having a different variety even though the rest is all the same so like on over here strawberry left side Alanta no deficiency and on the right side Sonata with deficiency so this Varity
85:00 - 85:30 just seems to have a more difficult uptake of iron and that's why it's showing more easily uh iron deficiency so the need of this quop is exactly the same as the other variety but because of a more difficult uptake uh this variety is more sensitive for an iron deficiency same with the use of root stocks now the I think that's not the case in in sugar cane but th it's still a nice example uh with crops where they
85:30 - 86:00 use uh root stocks yeah also the root stock can have influence on the the nutrient uptake so in this case there were two plantings in the season but on the second planting he used a different root stock and just see the difference in nutrient uptake or in silica uptake just by using other type of root stock the the differences can be gigantic so always be aware of that that there are always differences between varities and
86:00 - 86:30 that you have to check yeah what are the weaknesses of of my Varity I have on my field and it's definitely possible that some varities have a very bad uptake of zinc uh and other variety has maybe a good uptake of zinc and that you just need to focus on that variety what is always a bad uptake of zinc uh to get the zinc levels up yeah that's basically the first session of the webinar I think I have two minutes left
86:30 - 87:00 so that's uh perfectly on uh on time so I don't know any questions left uh I see one question can you show a preview of the recent sugar cane sample um yeah is it okay when I show that one next week because I don't have the example by hand on this moment can you hear
87:00 - 87:30 me yeah I can hear you if we don't know any of the like with a sample on C sugar cane if we're underw what levels we supposed to get can we assume that like ratios magnesium ratios would be the same what you're a to achieve in a s yeah so if your soil sample is telling you some sort of uh ratio yeah that it's not going to be the same in the plan so the ratio in the plan is going to be
87:30 - 88:00 totally different from uh the ratio in the soil because the upate is totally different and uh because in the case of potassium mainly the potassium availability in the soil is much lower than a calcium or or magnesium but if you look to plant sa then in most cases the potassium is one of the highest elements in uptake so that's the total opposite of what you will find on your soil sample so the Wes in the soil soil
88:00 - 88:30 and uh is not something you can compare with your plant analysis yeah but P would be something that should be the sorry a pH level would be the same as you would want to achieve in your s sample like your sa would be the same like a 6.5 in that sample for p height no no no no no that that's also going to be totally different so that's that's
88:30 - 89:00 what you we often hear is that uh that that you need to reach a certain pH because that would be best for the for the health of the plant but there are uh every crop has its own optimum pH and it has nothing to do with the pH in the soil so for example uh I don't know what the the pH is in in sugar cane on this moment but uh for example in cucumber it can go up to seven or a normal pH would be seven and in the case of tomato it's
89:00 - 89:30 around five and a half and if I look to Alo Vera that's even around three and a half so every CR has its own uh pH and that's for every crop different so there's no one pH for all crops yeah y yeah question you said that if you're high in in El um there is ways to bring it down
89:30 - 90:00 so what will be some way say El what ways you can bring it down um yeah not it's it's not always it's not easy to bring levels down so if one of the nutrients are too high in the plant then um you can check if there's a way to to block it or maybe it's too high because another element is too low so if you see that if your magnesium is
90:00 - 90:30 is way too high um and you want to get it down if you see that your potassium could be higher in the plant you can try to bring more potassium because it will have some blocking effect on magnesium um but but I think that's a little bit the whole story on on on what I discussed on on on this first session is there are so many factors that can influence the uptake and how you can affect the uptake so if eventually if you get your results back uh the first
90:30 - 91:00 thing you need to do is first figure out um okay which elements are too high or too low uh you're going to check the mobility and what will tell you what that will tell you something about the uptake and then you're going to check okay there are antagonistic interactions so if there's something to to change with the steer on uh to get one of the elements down or back up and um if that's not possible you have to check yeah what has caused that high uptake so is it because of
91:00 - 91:30 fertilization is it because of the weather is it because it rained a lot or it has been very drive over a longer period yeah that are all the questions you have to ask ask yourself uh to to get to eventually have an answer on on what can I do to get certain levels down or up in the plant so that's that's always diff diff different from every situation yeah if I can just uh hop in there so you we've got three samples or six
91:30 - 92:00 samples actually old and new lease from three three Fields um but the bath brief is in Bradford we didn't actually picking my alphabetical order they just Happ to be the closest um we can I'm I just want to check first with all the Growers uh and I think it's important that we you know we we're pretty open with our results so we can learn as we go and the make the most of the sampling that we do so I I can certainly circulate those results or sh can
92:00 - 92:30 circulate those results um well this afternoon if you loog as early as now to just you got something to look at and yeah what I'm going to do I'm goingon to gon to collect all those samples put them together in a guav like you saw also in in the first session and that's what I'm going to use with the interpretation of the analysis so the the next part is going to be or the next session I will start with the interpretation of the analysis so I'm going to use those six samples and I
92:30 - 93:00 will explain on what I'm seeing we might even discuss a little bit on if there are anywhere problems in the field and if we can see that back in the results and um I will check some sort of average level already for sugar cane on the DAT we have so far and and see a little bit with the interaction between each other what uh uh and and how to interpretate those analysis but that's going to be on the next
93:00 - 93:30 session yeah and and I think somewhere somewhere after that or at the end of the next session or or sometime after as a group we need to figure out the best best strategy to to sample uh so we can you just get get the make the most of the the um information we got as quick as we can yeah h sure sorry could a soil sample of that same block where taken a sap sample from help as far as determining what's
93:30 - 94:00 good and what bad in Def definitely yeah yeah soil sample going to be very useful in that way because if you see high levels in the plant you can at least check if that's because levels are high in the soil or the other way around so soil samples are definitely useful and the other thing what did I wanted to explain oh the I saw something in the chat box there's some sort of manual already you were using how to sample the sugar cane if if you have it
94:00 - 94:30 sent it to me as well because that's then I can check the way you you guys sampling the the sugar cane on this moment yeah so that would be probably the standard methodology for sampling for for dry tissue or dry matter sampling would that could that be the the same SE most probably yes yeah okay I'll send you that methology
94:30 - 95:00 y we just missed that last sorry you you missed the last thing I was explaining yeah it was about Trev is just going to share the um dry matter sampling method with um Eric so that he's got that to hand to um at least start there yeah then I know at least what the the way you guys sampling the crops on the
95:00 - 95:30 moment Eric you may have may not have met Shay sh put your hand up Shay so yeah so Shay actually did the took the samples for those ones that you you've got so um okay sh sh will you be able to pass on the methodology that you edic please thanks do you want yeah if you maybe in um if
95:30 - 96:00 you you maybe with next samples just make a picture on the on the the part of the plant you took the samples and uh the leaves you took because that's also useful for us to make a good manual for or how to sample the cop for sugar cane in this case yeah M sample sample was um prior to like a lot of the deficiencies I've addressed them since so I don't have a
96:00 - 96:30 current sample what like what the S would be like now I've changed a few things so don't know how much it would be helpful Yeah Yeah the more information I have for the transportation the more helpful I mean I can I can tell you what I've applied as well I suppose so I can get a s sample Plus what's been put on since that might be helpful yeah yeah all information is helpful eventually yeah
96:30 - 97:00 yeah so if there are any problems or deficiencies V visible on one of the fields which has been sampled and even if you have pictures of that or something yeah just send it to me or let me know then that will help me as well to with interpretation because I also don't have Target values so I have to look to the differences between the fields and um yeah every information I can get is is helpful in diagnosing the or basically to interpretate the
97:00 - 97:30 analysis U Eric it's Aaron Bary one of the Samplers um we just want to know well I did want to know how how the sampling went to you guys was there enough of it was there too much was it was it the right length all all the leaf that we got is it a right amount like it seemed excessive yeah yeah um uh if you
97:30 - 98:00 get results back then you know for sure that it was enough I haven't seen the the package coming in so I could ask some of the guys over here if they can remember if uh the Mount of leaves uh but but normally between 100 and 150 gram needs to be enough more than that is not necessary so um and I think sugar cane it's not too difficult to get sub out of the lease so I guess that around
98:00 - 98:30 100 yeah 100 to 50 gram has to be more than enough but I haven't seen I haven't seen the package coming in so I don't I don't know the amount of of leaves where which were in the in the package we had about a kilo was the was the total package and that was six samples so about 150 g per sample yeah be enough if if um there's a bit there's a bit of a juggling act here because we want to get out the cost of Transport down as much as we can uh and
98:30 - 99:00 we also want to get the consistency and accuracy of the samples as high as we can so you know if you're sampling a um a field obviously the more the more leaves that you you're taking samples from the would be the better wouldn't it Eric just sub sample that yeah exactly to have uh uh you need to you normally you need to take some of the lease from at least five to six different plans
99:00 - 99:30 because there always differences between the plants depending on different conditions so don't take just from from one or two plants I would try to take lease from at least five to six plants but it I know the lease can get quite long so um that will bring you already to to more than 150 gr so yeah but normally 100 to 150 gr needs to be enough maybe next time if you send the package to us then make a because I I cannot check
99:30 - 100:00 everything what comes in over here because we get over like last week we got more than 7,000 samples coming in so we don't I don't see any everything um so if you make a picture of the amount of leaves you took for the sample and send it to me then I can check if that's maybe or if the amount could be lower to save on cost for transport could you ask Roy because because Roy actually he made a point of of checking
100:00 - 100:30 the samples when they arrived to see they're okay and oh okay I can ask why yeah yeah yeah we want to know we want to know if we can actually send in less material per sample as well yeah yeah I will ask get oh so we we set in a we set in 100 Mil
100:30 - 101:00 long of the center of number three leaf and the two and the old one as well but only 100 Mil not the whole Leaf that's what we're trying to sort of picked up twice now that you said you only want 10 10 to 15 whole leaves well we only gave you the center of 100 Mil of 150 sticks old and new Leaf yeah but I think that that that that's good because if you would send the whole Leaf then I think one leaf can
101:00 - 101:30 get already more than 100 to 150 gram so I think that's the right with a lot of different crops they do it that way my issue with that is when we talking plant cane number three Leafs only going to be very very small yeah yeah so may maybe that's something we can look at uh if there is a better way to sample this qu yeah just make a I think it would be good to make a picture of next time you
101:30 - 102:00 sample or maybe uh uh you make already now a picture of of the CB itself and which leaves you one to take and I will check if there's something if you really need to send the whole leave or just the middle part will be enough good um yeah the other thing to note Eric is that the the sugar cane that's been sampled with with mature crops almost
102:00 - 102:30 ready for Harvest some some has been harvested it's typically I think we'd be concentrating more on the growing stages uh which which are coming up so as as Aaron said we'd be looking at what you know like the younger crops in particular um some advice I've received recently is that like when the crops about 30 cm tall that's probably the and probably and before the first uh fertilizer application it be the it be probably the first time we should be
102:30 - 103:00 looking say please yeah yeah I would take samples in in the most important stages of the quop so because how long does the the what is how long is the whole we cycle sorry one year one year yeah one year so yeah normally with with most cops it's like sampling every 3 to four weeks so that would be U but yeah I'm not sure yet for sugar cane how much
103:00 - 103:30 information that will give if you test every three or four weeks but normally with most props it's like every three to four weeks and so it would be I guess in the case of your Club it would be about eight or nine times a season then if it's a whole year yeah I think we've got some figuring out to do probably a little bit of few discussion before the next session but and then perhaps some after as well as and get a strategy together to how we can you know collect their
103:30 - 104:00 database pretty quickly and and get some meaningful information yeah exactly good okay then I think that was it for the for the first session I hope it was uh interesting and uh useful yeah thanks so much Eric