Improving Irrigation and Nutrient Management of Central Coast Vegetable and Berry Crops

Transcription

1 Improving Irrigation and Nutrient Management of Central Coast Vegetable and Berry Crops Michael Cahn Irrigation and Water Resources Advisor UC Cooperative Extension, Monterey County

2 Collaborators Aziz Baameur, UCCE Santa Clara Co. Andre Biscaro, UCCE Ventura Co. Mark Bolda, UCCE Santa Cruz Co. Surendra Dara, UCCE Santa Barbara Co. Oleg Daugovish, UCCE Ventura Co. Mark Gaskell, UCCE Santa Barbara Co. Tim Hartz, Dept. Plant Sci, UC Davis Cayle Little, Ca. Dept. of Water Resources Richard Smith, UCCE Monterey Co. Rick Snyder, LAWR, UC Davis Dave Krause and Bryon Noel, UCANR CSIT

3 Acknowledgements ANR Strategic Initiative Grant (2013) California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), FREP CDFA Specialty Crop Block Grant California Celery Research Board California Pepper Commission Driscolls Berry Grower participants

4 Central Coast

5 The Central Coast is the Salad Bowl Capital of the US Top vegetables by value: Lettuce Broccoli Celery Cauliflower Baby greens Spinach Mushrooms Artichokes Carrots Kale Radicchio Peas Asparagus Onions (green) 74% of lettuce produced in the US is from California

6 85% of US Strawberry Production

7 99% of US Raspberry Production

8 National Geographic Magazine, /water/plumbing-california-animation

9 Ground Water is the Largest Water Supply on the Central Coast

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11 Salinas Valley Aquifers Monterey County Water Resource Agency 55 m Aquifer 122 m Aquifer Deep Aquifer

12 Nitrate contamination of Ground Water Harter and Lund, 2012 MCWRA

13 Nitrogen use reporting started October, 2014

14 Why is Managing Agricultural Water Quality Challenging on the Central Coast? 2 to 3 vegetable crops per year High rates of water and fertilizer applied to maximize economic returns for yield and quality Shallow rooted crops

15 Approximately half of the above ground biomass is removed at harvest 60 to 70 lbs of nitrogen per acre remains as residue

16 Applied Water as Percentage of 350 Crop ET (Lettuce) Applied Water (% Crop ET) Avg Applied Water = 176% of Crop ET Field Number

17 Tools for Managing Water and Nitrogen Fertilizer in Vegetables Soil nitrate quick test Weather-based irrigation scheduling

18 Other information needed for N fertilizer recommendations: Minimum soil nitrate threshold for needed for developmental stages of crop N uptake rate (by development stage) Total N uptake

19 Weather-based irrigation scheduling Converting Reference ET to Crop ET: ET crop = ET ref K crop K c can vary from 0.1 to 1.2 CIMIS weather network

20 29 DAP 41 DAP 47 DAP 65 DAP

21 Goal: Develop guidelines that will assist farmers with improving nitrogen and water management of vegetable and berry crops. 1. Determine water and nitrogen needs of coastal vegetable and berry crops 2. Develop outreach tools to ensure that research results are used by farmers Approach: Many hands make light work 1. Standard protocols for sampling commercial fields 2. > 50 commercial fields evaluated during Pool data for analysis 4. Extension products: guidelines, expand CropManage, Industry presentations

22 Crops evaluated: Baby Lettuce Blackberry Broccoli Cabbage Cauliflower Celery Mizuna Leaf Lettuce Pepper Raspberry Spinach Strawberry

23 Data collected from commercial fields 1. Nitrogen uptake 2. Soil Nitrate 3. Applied Fertilizer N 4. Canopy development 5. Rooting depth 6. 4

24 2014 Commercial Field Sites Crop Number of Field Sites Counties Broccoli 6 Monterey, Santa Barbara Cabbage 5 Monterey Caneberries 1 Santa Barbara Cauliflower 6 Monterey, Santa Barbara Celery 6 Monterey, Ventura High density leafy greens 13 Monterey Peppers 7 Monterey, Santa Clara Strawberry 9 Santa Barbara, Ventura Total 53

25 Fraction of Maximum Canopy Cover Fraction of Crop Cycle

26 Biomass Sampling: Nitrogen Uptake of Raspberry

27 Nitrogen Uptake Pattern of Broccoli Fraction of N uptake Fraction of growing season

28 Nitrogen Uptake Pattern of Cole Crops Crop Season a b Xo N uptake at harvest (Nmax) Crop cycle Sites lbs N/acre days # broccoli winter broccoli summer cauliflower summer cauliflower winter red cabbage summer green cabbage summer

29 Root Depth of Broccoli

30 Evaluate Crop Coefficients Kc = ETa/ETref Energy Balance approach to measuring Crop ET Sonic Anemometer Thermal couple Net Radiometer

31 Expand CropManage to additional commodities: Web-based Irrigation and N management decision support tool

32 The road ahead

33 New version of CropManage under development Microsoft.NET Framework Dedicated programmer for CM Better user-interface Faster speed More flexibility to support different types of commodities Web-service for partnering Usage reporting

34 Summary We are developing basic information needed for understanding nitrogen and water requirements of coastal vegetable and berry crops Growers need this information to improve water conservation and minimize nitrate impacts on water supplies. Team approach has been effective in collecting a lot of data quickly over a large region.