Spring is just around the corner so we need to be thinking about our strawberry fertility programs.\u00a0 Now is a great time to get a tissue sample.\u00a0 This will give you a baseline and let you know if your pre-plant fertilizer has run out.\u00a0 It also allows you to check and adjust boron (B) levels in the plants.\u00a0 Boron is important for flower bud development and should be applied through the drip tape by late January.<\/p>\n
The sufficiency range for foliar B is 25 – 50 ppm.\u00a0 If you are low you need to be ready to put about 0.25 pounds of actual B per acre through the drip.\u00a0 Foliar applications of B are not as effective at helping with flower bud development.<\/p>\n
Usually around February is when we will begin with our fertility program.\u00a0 If you applied around 60 pounds on N, P, and K per acre prior to planting then additional phosphorous should not be necessary.\u00a0 However if you did not then you may want to consider using a water soluble triple 20 for most of the season.<\/p>\n
If P levels are good in the tissue you can use a combination of potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate.\u00a0 Potassium (K) should be applied in the pre-plant fertility and is only necessary if soil and tissue show a deficiency.\u00a0 Studies have shown that applying as much as 90 pounds more than the recommended K did not affect yield or quality.<\/p>\n
Nitrogen should be applied at a rate of around 0.5 lb\/A\/day which comes to 3.5 lbs\/week.\u00a0 It is beneficial to split this up based on soil type and irrigation frequency.\u00a0 If your soils are sandy it is recommended to inject fertilizer with every irrigation to reduce leaching.\u00a0 On heavier soils you can get by with less frequent irrigation and fertigation.<\/p>\n
If you want to stay on top of nitrogen fertility management it is smart to take tissue samples once spring growth begins and continue every 2 weeks.\u00a0 Remove 20-25 fully expanded leaves and petioles.\u00a0 Separate the two and submit the samples.\u00a0 The petiole samples give you an indication of nitrate nitrogen levels in the plant.\u00a0 There are charts<\/a> that you can use that track what levels should be at each week of growth.\u00a0 Using this methods ensures that you do not over or under fertilize.<\/p>\n most university labs can do the petilole analysis for nitrate nitrogen so there is no need to hunt a special lab or send them to another state.\u00a0 As always contact your county Agent if you have questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spring is just around the corner so we need to be thinking about our strawberry fertility programs.\u00a0 Now is a great time to get a tissue sample.\u00a0 This will give you a baseline and let you know if your pre-plant fertilizer has run out.\u00a0 It also allows you to check and adjust boron (B) levels […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/strawberry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}