There is a growing interest in developing means of early detection of crop nutrient deficiencies. It has held that by the time a deficiency shows up in a soil sample, the crop is already under stress. Does crop sap analysis help to resolve this information gap? If so, how can we expand the use of this from high margin specialty crops to commodity crops?
Leaf and petiole analysis is an established tool. Protocol for perennial crops have been standardized for nutrient analysis.
sir you can determine sugar contents from sap but nutrients can preferably be determine via ICARADA protocols (dried plant parts).
The concentration of nutrients inside the plant is determined through apparent symptoms, on-site color analysis, or laboratory analysis, which is the most accurate and representative of reality.
Expressed sap put into a hand refractometer gives a good indication of Brix or sugar content.
High vegetable and fruit content is related to health and quality.
The attractiness of fruits in particular is associated with Brix sugar content.
Another good indication of health and nutrition status is SPAD reading which determines a concentration of chlorophyll. Low chlorophyll will determine nitrogen insufficiency principally but also can indicate other chlorosis or yellowing from other nutrients and disease/pest.
The determination of stomic concentration is by use of dried parts leaves usually and 20 plants give a good sample . Concentrations need to be compared to ideal concentration depending on the plant and plant stage.
Soil analysis should be the first step as once problems are found it gives more issue in remediating them than approaching disbalance up front in the soil.
Soil analysis should give an action plan and the plant analysis can confirm the success of the soil remediation..
Multiple analyses gives more opportunity to define the issues and address them.
Thank you all, Muhammad Wajid Javed , Mohammed Saeed Haran , Shaon Kumar Das
, and Paul Reed Hepperly . I failed to include tissue analysis in my original question. To clarify, is there some value to sap analysis over soil testing and dried tissue testing. Soil testing does not always provide timely enough information to diagnose and correct nutrient deficiencies in-season. Tissue testing may be better than soil testing, but can we improve the accuracy any by sap analysis? If so, how can we scale up that analysis to make it profitable for row crop farmers? It seems to me like the knowledge of en vivo nutrient dynamics is good enough to improve this analysis as long as the technology exist to do it at the optimum scale.- Badges
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