In Ecuador we have 400.000 ha of oil palm and ned to know what are the rigth time to aplied mineral fertilizer in the soil
Dear Angel Marcelo Calvahe Ulloa, Ideally the fertilization will be applied according to the plant development stages and needs. If you are able to have an intercrop of forage legume that would satisfy the Nitrogen requirement. Phosphorus is generally focused on the planting hole and promotes optimized initial rooting. Potassium will be needed at the pollination to fruit filling especially. It also will be critical to understand what soil conditions you are dealing with. I would be happy to correct out your soil analysis to help pinpoint where your may focus your fertilization efforts.
If you are to cover the nitrogen by legume cover your inputs will concentrate on rock phosphate in an aicd soil and muriate of potash and kieserite which will satisfy the K, Mg, and Sulfate requirements. The amounts are scaled up from year 1 to year 5 at which time they remaind constant.
The oil palm needs a lot of mineral salts to form its leaves and fruit clusters and it needs more nitrogen at young stage.
Your need for supplementing oil palm will best be served by doing foliar analysis and comparing to optimized values for the stage of development.
For accurate foliar analysis you will need 20 leaflets to be dried and analyzed. Some people can judge this based on the leaf color and there are chlorophyll meters which can be useful.The greatest use of Nitrogen is in peak stages of growth and care should be taken not to over amend with Nitrogen as the plant will be top heavy. Depending on the acidity of the soil you may want to change how you amend your plant for Nitrogen. With your foliar analysis you will also get insight on other critical elements which might not be optimized and it may suggest soil treatments for further plantings.Your nutritional plan should always include the complete soil analysis and even water analysis if you irrigate and needs fluctuate depending on the changes of environmental conditions particularly rainfall which will cause leaching and denitrification.
Recommended nutrient for oil palm grown under rainfed condition is given in Table 1. It is advised to apply 400-200-400-125 g of N-P2O5-K20-MgSO4 per palm per year during the first year of plantation, 800-400-800-250 g of N-P2O5-K20-MgSO4 per palm per year during second year of plantation and 1200-600-1200-550 g of N-P2O5-K2O-MgSO4 per palm per year during third year onwards. Fertilizer requirements as per the availability of different fertilizers available in the market are given in Table 2.
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