Software for optimizing fertigation management in greenhouse crops.

Dr. Luca Incrocci Dipartimento di Biologia delle Piante Agrarie,

Università di Pisa

E-mail: incrocci@agr.unipi.it

Workshop Results of the EU Project “Euphoros- Efficient Use of Inputs in Protected Horticulture”

Donnalucata, (Italy) 6 October 2011

1

Content

Introduction

Nutrient solution calculator v1.0 (ExcelTM spreadsheet);

Simulhydro a fertigation management tool (ExcelTM

spreadsheet);

Hydrotools: software multi-languages for calculating the nutrient solution and simulating the effects of different fertigation strategies on the water and mineral use efficiency;

2

Introduction

The main goal is to reduce the environmental impact of soilless culture maximizing the yield;

Need to optimize the nutrient solution in order to use a nutrient solution similar to crop uptake concentration (ratio between nutrient and water uptake in a period);

use the fertigation strategy that could maximize the water and nutrient use efficiency

WUE (kg/m3)= total crop yield /total water use

NUE (kg/g)=total crop yield/total nutrient use

3

Introduction/2

In the EUPHOROS project UNIPI study how to reduce the environmental impact of soilless culture using different approach such as:

To reduce and/or prolong as long as possible the use of substrate;

To promote the use of semi-closed system instead open system;

To prolong as long as possible the use of the recirculating nutrient solution in the semi-closed system, using also special quick tests in order to monitor daily the recirculating nutrient solution;

The results are collected in the deliverable 15:

Advice system fertigation and substrate management with good and poor water quality

4

Visit the EUPHOROS WEB SITE/1

You can download it!

5

www.euphoros.wur.nl

Visit the EUPHOROS WEB SITE/2

Available in Italian English

and also inHungarian! 6

Nutrient Solution calculator v1.0

• Free tool (Excel spreadsheet) developed by University of Pisa. Available in Italian, English and Hungarian version (thanks to dr. Ombódi Attila of the Szent István University, Hungary).

•Input:

Water composition;

Crop recipe (also pH and EC); (It contains a database with 15 standard crop recipes);

Fertilizer and acid nutrient content (it contains a database with the most used products)

Fertigation system specification;

7

Nutrient Solution calculator V1.0

OUTPUT:

calculation of the nutrient solution and its cost;

calculation of stock nutrient solution ;

salt precipitation test.

06/19 8

START

Raw water analysis

Unit conversion

tool

Test (quality assessment)

Fertigation data

Crop recipes

Recipe database

Salts and acids

Fertiliser database

Select recipe

Yes

Crop recipe No

pH and EC

Recipe adjustment

Select salts and acids

Report (print)

Salt precipitation

test

Change dilution

ratio

No

Yes Calculation

Nutrient Solution calculator v1.0: flow-chart

9

Nutrient Solution calculator v1.0: report/1

10

Nutrient Solution calculator v1.0: report/2

11

Simulhydro fertigation manager: v2.0

• Free simulation tool (Excel spreadsheet) developed by University of Pisa for the assessment of the requirement for water and nutrients in a greenhouse soilless culture.

•Input:

Water, reference nutrient composition and nutrient uptake concentration (ratio between nutrient and water uptaken in a period);

Climate data (for ET modelling) or crop ET daily;

Growing system description (drainage tank volume, water content in the substrate, ;

Different fertigation strategies: open cycle, semi-closed cycle and set-point for the fertigation (ECMAX for flushing, substrate washing)

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Irrigation water

Nutrient stocks

Mixing tank

Substrate

Crop

OPEN SYSTEM Drainage Flushing

SEMI-CLOSED SYSTEM

Transpiration

Irrigation

Water uptake

EC adjustment

Recycling water

Acid pH adjustment

pH adjustment

Drain tank

Refill

Simulhydro 2.0 Fertigation management: system modelled

13

Fertigation strategies in tomato soilless culture (1):

Semi-closed systems

Tank

Stocks

Raw water

Strategy A: variable ECNS

Strategy B: constant ECNS

Tank

Stocks

Raw water

Flushing Flushing

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0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

4.5

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14Nutrients

NaCl

Nut. Sol.

EC

NS (

ds

m-1

)

Days

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

4.5

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14Nutrients

NaClNut. Sol.

EC

NS (

ds

m-1

)

Days

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

4.5

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14Nutrients

NaClNut. Sol.

EC

NS (

ds

m-1

)

Days

Strategy A Strategy B

Strategy C

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

4.5

Nutrients

NaCl

Nut. Sol.

EC

D (

ds

m-1

)

Time

Strategy D

Planting

End

Open system

Fertigation strategies in tomato soilless culture (2):

Semi-closed vs open systems

15

Leaf area

Flushing event (runoff)

Ion concentration

Water uptake

WUE & NUE

Climate

Growing system

Crop

Crop

Water quality

Fertigation strategy

Crop (Yield)

Input

Fertigation strategy

Output

16/31

Simulhydro 2.0 Fertigation management: model description

16

0

1

2

3

4

5

6Strategy A

EC

(dS

m-1

)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6Strategy B

EC

(dS

m-1)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 900

1

2

3

4

5

Strategy C

Days after planting

EC

(dS

m-1

)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 900

1

2

3

4

5

Strategy D

Days after planting

EC

(dS

m-1)

Simulhydro 2.0: model validation (EC)

17 Massa et al. 2011. Simulation of crop water and mineral relations in greenhouse soilless culture. Environmental Modelling & Software 26 (2011) 711-722.

Strategy A

0

4

8

12

16

Na+

NO3-

Ion c

oncentr

ation (

mol m

-3)

0

7

14

21

28

35

Strategy B

Na+

NO3-

Ion c

oncentra

tion (m

ol m

-3)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Strategy C

0

4

8

12

16

Na+

NO3-

Days after planting

Ion c

oncentr

ation (

mol m

-3)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 900

7

14

21

28

35

Strategy D

Na+

NO3-

Days after planting

Ion c

oncentra

tion (m

ol m

-3)Simulhydro 2.0: model validation (N and Na)

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Simulhydro (2.0): report

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HYDROTOOLS: a software for the help in the fertigation management

• In collaboration with CNR-IBIMET Firenze (M. Romani, P. Battista, B. Rapi, M. Bevilacqua, L. Bacci) we are building a new freeware DSS software.

•Main characteristics:

-It is a modular system developed in C# Microsoft .Net Frameworks 4.0 -Software requirement: from Windows XP sp3 to Windows 7. -The system default language is English (US) and in Italian. -The system architecture is based on a central database that stores both input and output data. -The database is implemented on SQLite database engine.

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Hydrotools: main components

Language

management CONTROL

PANEL

User manual

DATABASE

SQLite

platform

Data

management

NS calculator

(SOL-NUTRI)

Fertigation

management

OFF-LINE (SIMULHYDRO)

Reporting

Statistics

Graphical

display

Data export

21

22

Hydrotools: new facilities

• The same database for NS calculator and Simulhydro permits an easy selection of the waters and nutrient solutions for the simulation;

• Automatic conversion tools between mg/L or ppm to mol m-3

• Crop-specific water evaluation test;

•New functions for Simulhydro:

- Possibility to simulate different greenhouse crops; - Growing cycle could be divided up to 12 different phases; - Nutrient solution run-off could satisfy special environmental constrains (i.e. environmental laws); - Simulation of all macro and micronutrients concentration in real commercial closed or open soilless system.

Commercial (Semi)-closed system

Rainwater Groundwater

Daily drenage storage tank Storage drainage tank

Drain water

Nutrient solution tank

Mixer

Sector 1

Sector 3

Sector 2

Disinfection

unit

Fertigation strategy

Day-storage tank

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Disinfection unit

irrigation

Storage nutrient solution irrigation tank

Fertirrigator device

Sector 1

Sector 2

Sector 3

substrate

Daily drainage

Disinfected drainage

Hydrotools starting

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Hydrotools: control panel

25

Language setting

Exit and Save Exit

26

Database management

27

Database management: inserting a new water composition

28

Water composition already present in

the database

Database management: inserting a new water composition

29

Water composition already present in

the database

Database management: inserting a new fertilizer composition

30

Fertilizer composition

already present in the database as

default

Insert here the fertilizer

composition for each ion

Database management: insert a new crop/stage

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Database management: insert new thresholds

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For water evaluation, for the min and max concentration tolerate by the crop

Guideline values for water quality

evaluation specific for the crop

Minimum ion concentration tolerate by the

crop

Maximum ion concentration tolerate by the

crop

Database management: insert a new crop uptake

concentration

33

Database management: insert a new environmental

constrain

34

Solnutri: starting

35

Solnutri: new NS calculation

36

Solnutri: water quality test

37

Solnutri: EC and pH adjustment

38

Solnutri: acid and fertilizer setting

39

Solnutri: after calculation

40

41

Solnutri: calculation of a second acid for water pH control

42

Solnutri: stock nutrient solution precipitation test

Solnutri: report

43

Irrigation water ion composition

Ion recipe composition

Nutrient solution composition

Amount of salts to dissolve in the stock nutrient

solution

Simulhydro: starting

44

45

46

Hydrotools: Set the scenario

47

48

49

Hydrotools: growing system input

50

Hydrotools: choose an environmental constrain

51

Hydrotools: choose an physiological constrain

Hydrotools: simulhydro

OUTPUT:

The software save an excel file where there are the concentration for each ion, in the irrigation nutrient solution, in the substrate and in the drainage;

calculation of water and nutrient balance including WUE and NUE;

Now we are going to implement some graphical tools in the software for a direct display of the main simulation parameters

52

Hydrotools: graphical output

53

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

1

5

9

13

17

21

25

29

33

37

41

45

49

53

57

61

65

69

73

77

81

N-N

O3 c

on

ce

ntr

ati

on

(m

ol m

-3)

Simulation day

Closed cycle-variable EC

Cs N-NO3

Cd N-NO3

Cirr N-NO3

Hydrotools: table output

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Table 4. Water balance sheet for different

fertirrigation strategies.

Parameter (variable EC)

Mean st.dev.

Crop water uptakeWU ( L m-2) 252.00

WFL for each flushing (L m-2) 3.00

Number of flushings 9.00

Water leachate for flushings events (Wrunoff Lm-2) 27.00

Water loss for Continuos bleeding volume WCB (L m-2) 0.00

Water lechate during the substrate washing (WDw, L m-2) 108.00

Water in the system at the end of growing cycle excluding

substrate (WEND, L m-2) 3.00

Total water lechate WL (L m-2) 138.00

Water use (WUSE, L m-2) 390.00

Leaching fraction (LF) 0.35

First flushing (days from the start) 11.00

Flushing frequency with the esclusion of the first flushing (days) 9.20

Hydrotools: table output

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Table 8. Nitrogen balance sheet for different fertirrigation

strategies.

Parameter Strategy A (variable EC)

Mean st.dev.

Total supply, including substrate at the start (Nsupply) (g m-2) 66.1

N leachate by flushing events (NFL) (g/m2) 3.55

N leachate by continuos bleeding 0.0

N present in the drainage at the end of cycle (g m-2) 1.7

N leachate during the substrate washing (NDw, L m-2) 13.88

N leachate for continuos bleeding volume NCB (g m-2) 0.00

N in the system at the end of growing cycle including substrate

(L m-2) 1.67

Total N leachate (NL) (g m-2) 20.8

N Uptake (NU) (g m-2) 45.4

N-NO3 mean concentration in the flushing (NL, mol m-3) 9.4

N-NH4 mean concentration in the flushing (NL, mol m-3) 0.0

Conclusion

The software developed by UNIPI, with the collaboration of CNR-IBIMET will be a important simulation tools that could help grower and technician to take decision on the fertigation management of soilless culture.

PLEASE VISIT THE WEB SITE OF EUPHOROS FOR LAST NEWS ON HYDROTOOLS SOFTWARE.

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THANK FOR THE ATTENTION!!