With soil health becoming ever more important for growers and the planet and with the rising cost of fertilizers, we're thrilled to be part of Yara North America's Better Soil Alliance initiative.
"Precision irrigation is the foundation for improving operational efficiency, optimizing fertigation and nutrient uptake by plants. We are proud to be part of Yara’s vision to supply growers' sustainable fertilizers and the knowledge for optimizing fertilizer application”’, says Oz Ben-David, Phytech’s VP, Growth & Business Development.
The Better Soil Alliance supports the California almond industry in the pursuit of practical solutions that positively impact food production by improving water productivity, soil health, and lowering carbon footprint. The Alliance has put sustainably-focused solutions to the test across 6,000 acres to understand their collective impact on critical issues the almond industry faces including water scarcity, drought, and rising temperatures.
By placing trunk-sensors (dendrometers) that track trees’ growth rate and stress, together with hydraulic monitoring tools, joint research teams can observe the correlation between nutrition application and trees’ response. Plus, farmers can avoid unnecessary soil contamination, leaching and fertilizers' wastage by tracking real-time soil moisture levels at the active root-zone.
Ziv Attia, PhD, Head of Agronomy at Phytech: “Our goal is to bridge the gap between fertigation planning and execution. Phytech enables growers to monitor nutrient application and confirm it follows the 4Rs of nutrient management. With the rising costs of fertilizers and increased demand for sustainable agriculture, the ability to determine the optimal time, rate, location and source of fertilizer is evermore critical. Moreover, responding in real time will help maximize water and nutrient usage, increasing yield potential while minimizing costs and environmental impact".
Observing the inter-relations between the 4 R's
Example from Phytech's Plant app of Real-time fertigation monitoring:
Comments