Posts Tagged: transplant
Planning for Vegetables
By Susanne von Rosenberg, UC Master Gardener of Napa County During this uncertain time,...
Vegetables, grow some! (UC Davis Health)
Plan your garden--this is an example (The Demo Garden Blog)
Interplanting (UC ANR)
Use a write on calendar to make notes (Blank Calendar Page)
Use space wisely (UC Riverside)
Broccoli side shoots to harvest after the main head has been harvested (UC MG of Contra Costa County)
Have seedlings ready to transplant at the right time ((UC ANR)
DIY garden trellis--commerical ones are available online (Garden Gate Magazine)
Radish and carrot interplanted (Flickr)
Use that write on calendar for planning as well as notes (Blank Calendar Page)
Compost, always our last and best advice (Napa Valley Register)
Mechanical Transplant of Strawberry
Nice clip here of a mechanical transplant operation underway in Santa Maria just a few days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwBpDsF-lNE&feature=youtu.be
Great photography shot out of a drone.
The people running this machine clearly understand the dynamics of this system better than I do, but from a horticultural perspective I am looking closely at two things:
1. The machine is planting plugs (alleviating my concern about "J" rooting!).
2. How will the plug plants respond to a summer planting scenario, given (as far as I understand) that they have no cold conditioning.
Nice to see this sort of progress in the industry.
H/T colleague Surendra Dara who turned me on to this video.
Mark
X
Drip establishment of strawberries on the Central Coast
Establishing strawberry transplants using drip has several potential advantages compared to overhead sprinklers. Irrigation run-off can be greatly reduced, which protects surface water quality. Some growers have found that they can save water using drip for transplant establishment, and save costs associated with using overhead sprinklers. Often nitrogen fertilizer can be spoon fed to the crop through the drip system earlier in the season than in fields established with sprinklers, thereby reducing the reliance on pre-plant fertilizers that may result in nitrate leaching losses.
Nevertheless, growers are concerned that irrigating transplants using mainly drip may result in less vigorous growth and more dead plants during the establishment period, and yields during the production season will be lower than crops established with sprinklers. One of the specific concerns is that the drip lines adjacent to plant rows may not be as effective in leaching salts from the root zone of young plants as overhead sprinklers. Another worry is that if the transplants are not properly planted and gaps exist between the root crown and the soil, moisture will not move toward and imbibe young roots, and the plant may be set back or die.
Last year was challenging for establishing strawberries is many fields on the Central Coast due to the lack of rain, which normally helps to leach salts that may accumulate around young strawberry transplants. However, these challenging conditions were perfect for comparing vigor and yield of strawberries established using drip and overhead sprinklers.
Field trial description
We conducted a demonstration trial at a ranch in North Salinas beginning November 13, 2013. Soil was a loam texture. The field was planted with UC Albion variety in 2 rows on 52-inch wide beds. Two plots, each of approximately 1-acre in size, were located adjacent to each other in one of the irrigation blocks. Transplants were established using drip in one of the plots and with overhead sprinklers in the other plot. The irrigation foreman made all decisions on how long and often to irrigate both plots. Overhead sprinklers were used for the first 2 irrigations in the drip plot to assure that the transplants were in good contact with the soil. All subsequent irrigations were made using 2 lines of drip tape per bed. In the plot established with overhead sprinklers, transplants were also irrigated twice using the drip system. The last sprinkler irrigation was on January 25th, after which both plots were irrigated with only drip.
Applied water was monitored using flow meters installed on the drip submain and on the sprinkler main line until the end of February. Soil moisture was evaluated in the upper 6 inches of soil next to the transplants using a volumetric moisture sensor at weekly intervals during establishment. Soil salinity was also periodically monitored to a 4 inch depth next to the transplants using a soil salinity sensor (Fig 1.), or by sampling soil and analyzing saturated paste extracts for salts. Plants were rated for vigor and evaluated for canopy cover until mid February (Fig 2.). Marketable fruit yield was evaluated between late April and mid July.
Figure 1. A 5TE decagon probe was used to measure bulk salinity near strawberry plants.
Figure 2. Transplants were periodically evaluated for canopy size by measuring plant width or using a multi-spectral NDVI camera.
Results
Applied water during transplant establishment was about 25% less for the drip treatment compared to the standard sprinkler treatment. As shown in Fig. 3, irrigation water applied to the drip treatment equaled 6.8 inches between Nov. 13 and Feb. 20th. During the same period, water applied in the sprinkler treatment equaled 9.1 inches. An additional 1.5 inches of rainfall were also measured during this period. Estimated evapotranspiration (ET) losses during establishment were 3.2 and 1.1 inches for the sprinkler and drip treatments, respectively. The lower estimated ET amount for drip was due to less wetting of the furrows than in the sprinkler treatment.
Figure 3. Irrigation water and rainfall for the drip and sprinkler treatments between Nov. 13 and Feb. 20th.
Soil moisture measured near the transplants was similar among the drip and sprinkler establishment treatments except for 4 dates between mid December and mid January when the sprinkler plot had higher soil moisture levels than the drip plot (Fig 4).
Figure 4. Volumetric soil moisture measured next to transplants for the drip and sprinkler treatments.
Bulk electrical conductivity (EC), an indirect measure of soil salinity, was slightly higher next to the drip established transplants than the sprinkler established transplants for 4 of 5 dates measured between December and early February (Fig. 4). Bulk EC values were generally low for both treatments, which was confirmed from the saturated paste extracts of soil sampled on January 24 2014 (3rd evaluation date). The EC of the saturated paste extract was 0.80 and 1.83 dS/m, respectively, for the sprinkler and drip established plots. Saturated pasted extract values below 2 dS/m would not be expected to harm strawberry plant growth. Plant vigor (Fig. 5) and canopy cover (Fig. 6) were not different between the sprinkler and drip establishment treatments. Likewise cumulative fruit yields (Fig. 7) were the same for the two methods of irrigation establishment.
Figure 5. Bulk electrical conductivity of the soil adjacent to strawberry transplants, measured using the Decagon 5TE probe.
Figure 6. Plant vigor of drip and sprinkler established transplants, where 0 equates to dead or dying plants, and 5 signifies all plants are very healthy.
Figure 7. Percentage of ground shaded by leaves, measured using a multi-spectral infra-red camera.
Figure 8. Cumulative marketable fruit yield for sprinkler and drip established plants.
Discussion and Conclusions
The results of this field trial demonstrated that drip can be successfully used to establish strawberry transplants during the winter on the Central Coast, even during drought conditions when rainfall is minimal. Marketable fruit yields were the same between the drip and sprinkler established plots. Additionally, 25% less water was used under drip than in the sprinkler plots during the initial establishment phase. Salinity was maintained at a sufficiently low level in the soil as to not impair transplant vigor and initial growth under drip.
Low water demand of plants during the late fall and early winter is an import factor that helped us successfully establish plants using drip. New transplants have few leaves and reference evapotranspiration, on average, is less than 0.07 inches per day. Since water demand is low, the main purpose of irrigation during establishment is to keep crown roots hydrated and to leach salts from the root zone. Using good planting techniques is critical to successfully using drip for establishment. Transplant roots need to be in contact with the soil and should not be “J” rooted. Also, soil salinity should be low as possible before planting. Preplant fertilizer bands should be located a sufficient distance from the transplant roots so that emerging new roots are not burned by fertilizer salts.
For this trial, we irrigated the drip treatment twice with overhead sprinklers to assure that the roots were in good contact with the soil. Under normal weather conditions on the Central Coast, rain often occurs between late November and February, which can also assist with the establishment of transplants by maintaining high soil moisture and leaching salts from the root zone of young plants.
Acknowledgements
We thank Dole and their employees for their help and partnership with this trial, and we thank Walmart for funding this project.
/span>
Heads Up About the Potential for Salt Damage in Berries
People should be super aware right now that the lack of rain we are experiencing is certain to exacerbate salt problems in berries this winter. I’ve been driving around a bit visiting fields, growers and PCA’s and the problem doesn’t yet seem too bad although I am starting to see a little bit of damage here and there. Still, I have a strong sense of foreboding that this could get big as the season progresses on the Central Coast without any rain.
See the pictures below from colleague Steven Koike for what salt damage looks like in strawberries.
Key points to keep in mind regarding winter management of salinity (Many thanks to Dr. Stuart Styles from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo for giving me a copy of the entire data notebook of his work on salinity in strawberries from which I draw the points below - I treasure this book and it has been very useful to my understanding of this topic):
1. Salinity is a key determinant in the healthy establishment of strawberry transplants, and young plants do not tolerate elevated levels of salinity for very long. Certain literature seems to say that soil salinity EC of above 4.0 dS/m would result in total loss of fruit yield, but Dr. Style’s work demonstrates this is going to depend where exactly this salinity is to be found. His work and my own experience in the field informs us that if the grower acts quickly and the salinity is kept away from the roots, the effect on fruit yield could be much less.
2. Salts come from various sources including irrigation water, gypsum, fertilizers and especially composting (which is why I think we tend to see more salt damage in organically farmed berries).
3. Rain has a HUGE effect on soil salinity. According to the work of Dr. Styles and his colleagues, a single heavy rain can lower soil salinity by 50%; less so because of the quantity of water but because the rainwater has a low pH and zero salt content.
4. Salinity of irrigation water has a real impact on fruit yields. Water salinity of less than 1.0 dS/m will have very little impact on yield, but as the irrigation water salinity creeps over 1.2 dS/m the effect can be substantial.
Picture showing the progression of salt damage in strawberry transplants. Photo courtesy Steven Koike, UCCE.
Close up of strawberry transplant experiencing high soil salinity. Note burnt appearance of leaf margins. Also of note is salty residue on the black bed plastic. Photo courtesy Steven Koike, UCCE.
Clarification on the Use of Chateau (flumioxazin) prior to Strawberry Transplanting
A response to the question posed to us concerning how soon one should be applying water to Chateau (flumioxazin) sprayed in the furrows for weed control in strawberry. The label says that this herbicide can be applied at a minimum of 30 days before transplant of strawberries, but it doesn’t seem to specify how soon to apply the water after application.
Probably the sooner you apply water to furrows the better, but in a study run by Oleg in Ventura County, Chateau was applied to furrows about a month before sprinklers were turned on and the herbicide was effective against several broadleaf weed species, including wind-dispersed weed seed that landed in furrows after application.
Chateau does not degrade and just remains on soil surface, provided furrows stay dry during that time. If the furrows get wetted enough to germinate weeds the herbicide will be sufficiently activated as well.
The residual efficacy of Chateau is diminished over time, but you can reapply it to furrows if needed – there is no co-distillation, so as long as there is no drift, strawberry plants should be safe. You can extend the control by reapplying it with shielded sprayer in-season as long as the strawberry plants do not have flowers and fruit (which is soon in Southern California but quite a bit later here in Watsonville and Salinas) and you do not intentionally overspray the beds (first photo below) .
Also, thinking about traffic going through the field after application, specifically the wheels of tractors moving through the furrows, it does create some breaks in the barrier that the initial application of Chateau has formed. It might be interesting to do a little experiment with different levels of disturbance post-application to see how much efficacy really is affected. However, remember that Chateau can be reapplied later on in December and January in the furrows in order to get better control since it will be catching multiple flushes and cohorts of weeds from both the seed bank and wind dispersal.
UC IPM guidelines for Chateau in strawberry are available at:
www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r734700411.html
The use of flumioxazin (Chateau) is extensively written about in this article. Before this or any other product, check with your local Agricultural Commissioner's Office and consult product labels for current status of product registration, restrictions, and use information.
Damage to strawberry fruit by Chateau sprayed directly on top - don't do this! Photo courtesy Oleg Daugovish - UCCE.
Effect on mallow sprayed with Chateau. Photo courtesy Oleg Daugovish - UCCE.