2023-10-05 16:02:02
The predictions for the consequences of the El Niño phenomenon are not at all encouraging for Ecuador. According to experts from the Escuela Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), the climatic event will arrive in the country between November and December of this year, with precipitation peaks expected for February and March 2024 and the climatic situation could persist until June of next year.
This phenomenon, originating in the Pacific Ocean, has the power to alter weather patterns around the world and although it affects everyone, agriculture is one of the main sectors that could be harmed as a result of floods and landslides, especially coastal areas. , as already happened in 1982 and 1997.
Alexis Villacrés, agronomy manager for Yara Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, comments that, in times of climate crises such as the El Niño Phenomenon, precision agriculture becomes a useful tool to face this possible eventuality.
From Yara, for example, the Megalab Plus satellite crop diagnosis and monitoring service was developed, a tool that provides a comprehensive program tailored to the farm and the situation, as well as nutritional monitoring and climate forecasts, which allows plan the application of soil and foliar fertilizers in the field, to the extent that circumstances allow.
“The challenge is to maintain a crop with good nutritional management and induce resistance factors in plants to face water stress conditions. Precise analyzes of soil and leaf tissue will be essential as a starting point to optimize productivity and efficiency in the use of fertilizers under adverse conditions such as waterlogged soils,” he details.
The specialist also points out that with the increase in rainfall, the fractionation of soil fertilization, the choice of sources, the use of multinutrient products and the inclusion of essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sulfur, calcium will be key. , zinc and boron, to promote crop recovery and mitigate their impact on productivity.
“In conditions of saturated soils with little oxygen, foliar fertilization becomes a successful strategy to supply nutrients through the leaves to stimulate important physiological processes, guaranteeing the metabolic functioning of the crop,” explains Villacrés.
During this stage, he adds, it will be necessary to implement nutritional programs that incorporate biostimulant substances to promote the resilience of plants to adverse conditions. Elements such as silicon, via foliar use, for example, have been shown to help the recovery and activation of the crop.
In addition, it can be interspersed with applications of algae extracts, which due to their high content of bioactive substances will work together with the nutrients so that the plant remains stimulated and physiologically active.
(vistazo.com)
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