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Tip of the month

Measure your slab parameters

Measure your slab parameters in an organized way using a sensor and set target objectives per parameter for the different periods of the crop.

Published: November 13, 2020 Share?

Measuring = Knowing = Thinking = Doing

The root system is the part of the crop which is often a bit under estimated. For a lot of growers the rootzone is a so called ‘blackbox’ in which a lot of things (can) happen. It is the part where the plant will take up water and nutrients. If the parameters are wrong, the plant will have difficulties to take up the right (amount) of water and nutrients.

At the end the plant will not be in balance and this will cost yield and quality on plant and fruit level. So to avoid these imbalance of uptake, the grower has to monitor the parameters in the rootzone. The so called Big Five: Water Content (WC), EC, pH, O2 and Temperature (T).

By measuring the water content and the EC realtime, the grower can detect where he has to adjust his irrigation strategy. Because the sensors will show the grower if the rootzone will become too wet, resulting in oxygen deficiency, or too dry. But he will also learn where the limits of the plants are. For example, if the EC increases at a certain moment but the grower did not expect that, he knows that he has to stir differently in such periods.

Also pH has to be monitored. When giving a too low or too high pH, nutrient uptake will be out of balance. By measuring on a regular base, the grower can adjust when necessary the pH to control the pH level in the rootzone. In such a way that uptake of nutrients will be possible in the best way.

So by knowing this, the grower can make sure not to go over the limits and supply sufficient amount of water and nutrients to the plant. To control the water buffer and to realize the potential of the stonewool slab in controlling the plant balance. Measuring = Knowing = Thinking = Doing