The HDC has developed a strawberry feed calculator, which is will be unveiling for the first time this month.
The calculator has been designed so as to allow growers and consultants to enter different quantities of various feed products to achieve target recipes, HDC explains. The quantities can be adjusted as necessary until the target recipe is achieved.
The calculator has been designed to be used in soil grown crops as well as soil-less substrates using either a one stock tank or two stock tank system.
Research scientists and consultants often provide recommendations to growers to follow specific feed recipes, while growers are also advised to alter the conductivity of their feed at certain times of year.
But growers that do not have some knowledge of chemistry and molecular weights can struggle to achieve such recipes or changes in conductivity, explains HDC communications manager for soft fruit, Scott Raffle.
The calculator therefore helps growers to calculate the correct quantities to achieve such recipes or changes in conductivity, as it has been constructed on an Excel spreadsheet with empirical formulas and molecular weights built in.
Raffle went on to say that the calculator can be used in conjunction with a new factsheet that has been produced for strawberry growers entitled ‘Principles of strawberry nutrition in soil-less substrates’, which recommends a range of feed recipes for different types of strawberry crops and satisfactory range of nutrients in strawberry leaves.
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