Fertirrigation is an agronomic technique of recent introduction in agriculture, which consists in fertilizing and watering at the same time and together and is thus the most efficient method for satisfying the plants’ water and nutritional requirements.
This is for carrying out fertirrigation using an irrigation system which is designed to do the job, i.e. equipped with a hose, drip bar, drip system, inferior sprayers, etc., or to do so using mechanical systems applied to a tractor, i.e. a plow, or sidebars with spray nozzles.
In floriculture and horticulture this technique is used by farmers since a long time, in fruiting growing it started to be considered only in the last years, leading to benefits in both the nutrition and production of the plant or crop.
Fertiirrigation can completely substitute the traditional fertilization with a series of advantages:
1) Smaller concentrations of fertilizer are applied and delivered at a rate that can be readily absorbed by plants, there is less of it available for pollution from runoff;
2) Possibility of deliver to plants the elements they really need in the most important stages of the vegetative cycle;
3) Less waste of time: fertilizing and watering at the same time;
4) Less crushing of the soil underfoot;
5) Quicker absorption of nutritive elements;
6) This technique is environmentally friendly: a smaller amount of product is needed by fertirrigation instead of a traditional fertilization.