The Situations And Strategies Of Application Of Fertilizer In Fruit And Vegetable Planting In Shaanxi Province

Fruit and vegetable industries play crucial roles in the strategic regulation of agricultural structure in Shaanxi and backbone industry to increase the income of farmers. Fruit products dominated in Shaanxi, and only the apple planting area was about 400000 hectares, the second in china and vegetable about 130000 hectares. So it is necessary to investigate the situation of fertilizer application in fruit and vegetable and to gain the first data, which was essential to find the main problems presented in fruit and vegetable fertilizer application and to provide scientific advice showing meaningful significance in the development of fruit and vegetable industries in Shaanxi. The situation of fertilizer application was dynamic, influenced by localization, economics, tradition and the development of science and technology. Because of the development of local economics and farmers'awareness and the marked impact of price of agricultural products on agriculture, the situation of fertilizer application changed sharply. Recent years, numerous researches have been carried out on scientific fertilizer application of fruit and vegetable. And the related scientific reports and literature was sprung up but the systematic reports of the fertilizer application of fruits and vegetables were few. So this investigation of the fertilizer application of dominant fruit and vegetable in Shaanxi was carried out since 2002. And the principal results as following. 1. The application of organic fertilizers was various with single types, poor qualities and low fertility. The investigation showed organic fertilizer application occupied a large quantity of total fruit and vegetable planting area in Shaanxi with 79.2% in fruit planting area and 87.8% in vegetable planting area. But the situation was not optimistic. And it found about a half of orchards with out or with low amount of organic fertilizer applying. In Yaozhou region, Tongchuan city, no organic fertilizer was applied in eggplant planting. In Ankang, organic fertilizer applied insufficiently in pepper planting and the organic fertilizer input less than 15000 kg/ha occupied about 90%. 2. The proportion of fertilizer application was unreasonable, especial with the deficiency in potassium application.. Experts suggested that the sound ratio of N, P and K was 1:0.5-0.7: 0.5-0.8 in Shaanxi province. But the investigated results showed that the ratio of N, P, K was 1:0.73: 0.38, in high yield apple orchard, 1: 0.81: 0.41 in moderate yield and 1: 0.61: 0.25 in low yield of Shaanxi province. And the K-application proportion was obvious lowest. In general, fruit trees need much K, but our experiment result showed that amount 19 orchard soil samples only two samples with higher available K content(190-200mg/kg), two with deficient available K content (94-102 mg/kg), and other 15 samples with severs deficiency in K(less than 67mg/kg). It was also found that about 42.1% apple orchard without application of K fertilizer, and the low K-application occupied about 28.5% of the investigated apple orchard. No application of K occupied 53% in pear orchard, 52% in orange orchard, 74% in grape orchard, 49% in peach orchard, and 46% in kiwifruit orchard. These data suggested that the importance of K application had not raised the attention of farmers. 3. Blinked application of fertilizers was an extensive existed problem. It was found that the similarity of fertilizer application was a typical phenomenon within small regions. Mostly farmers apply fertilizers depended on their traditional experiences or learning from each other. The mean N fertilizer input to apple orchard in Shaanxi province was much higher than normal level, excluding some newly-established orchard. About 34.7% of the investigated farmers applied N in the amount higher than the optimal and 34.7% over-applied N. the moderate and high yield apple orchard exceed P input than the optimal amount. and about 34% farmers applied P in the amount higher than the sound input, 21.5% over applied P. It was surprisingly found that the investigated 6 farmers in Yongshou country with the highest input of N for 1327.5 kg/hm2, P for 1830 kg/hm2 and K for 804 kg/hm2, and lowest input of N for 855 kg/hm2, P for 870 kg/hm2, in which the mean value exceeded the two time of normal using. But on the contrary the farmer did not achieve high yield. Though the highest yield was 45000kg/hm2 in the 6 investigated farmers, four of them gained the yield less 30000kg/hm2. as well as the typical yield was less 15000kg/hm2 in Tongchuan city, where the farmers did not apply any fertilizer. 4 The compositions of fertilizer was unreasonable, the moderate and micro-fertilizer was ignored Simple fertilizers was dominant such as (NH4)HCO3 and Ca (H2PO4)2. And some high efficiency fertilizers such as tri-element composition, BP fertilizer and some fruit specific fertilizers occupied less than 10%. Though some novel fertilizers of moderate and microelements such as Zn, B, Fe and Ca, as well as some amino acid and humus containing fertilizer has been reported to increase orchard production. Only 9.4% of the investigatedfarmers applied these new fertilizers to apple. And in the fertilizer consumption market, urea and amino carbonate was dominant for N, Ca (H2PO4)2 and (NH4)2HPO4 for P, and tri-element composition, vegetable specific fertilizer and BB occupied only 10% of the market. For the reasons mentioned above, some suggest were given as following. First, broadly propagating and expending the application of balanced fertilizing. Second, investigating the situation of fertilizer application combined with the monitoring the dynamics of fertility in soil. Third, carrying out the fertilizer tests in fruit and vegetable and establishing some relevant parameters.