Fertilization for Banana
One of the services I offer is the Banana Fertilization using DRIS and QuEFTS.
Below are the basic overview of the DRIS and QuEFTS. If you do have some questions, feel free to contact us.
Introduction and Overview
QUEFTS (QUantitative Evaluation of the Fertility of Tropical Soils) predicts crop yields from chemical soil characteristics, assuming all other production factors are optimal. QUEFTS was originally developed as a tool for land-evaluation. Soil fertility is an important aspect of land quality and the objective of QUEFTS was to express soil fertility on a one dimensional scale. QUEFTS gives a quantitative estimation of the overall fertility level. For this purpose, QUEFTS calculates the potential availability of the three major nutrients (N, P, K), and deals with the interactions between them. QUEFTS gives a quantitative estimation of the overall fertility level, using as a yardstick the expected yield without the use of fertilizer.
The model was first designed for the quantitative prediction of maize yields on unfertilized tropical soils, but it can be adjusted for other crops and soils. The empirical relationships of the model published in 1990 (Janssen et al.) were estimated on the basis of results from field trials in two areas in Kenya and one in Surinam. Smaling (1993) applied QUEFTS in an area of Kenya, other than the area for which the original empirical relationships were tested.
The administrator has developed a customized QUEFTS for Table Bananas. The QUEFTS for banana production has been of great help to the growers in the Philippines.
Diagnostics & Recommendation Integrated System (DRIS) has gain popularity in analyzing nutrient balance for different crops. Its importance has been noted to fertilization process.
The usual methods for leaf chemical analyses interpretation presuppose the nutrient concentration comparison with reference values (critical concentrations or sufficiency ranges).
Nutrient concentrations far below or above reference values are associated with decreasing vegetative growth, yield and quality. These methods intend to evaluate isolated deficiency or excess values, without measuring the overall nutritional balance.
In general, the DRIS has some advantages over other diagnosis methods:
> presents continuous scale and easy interpretation; allows nutrient classification (from the most deficient up to the most excessive);
>can detect cases of yield limiting due to nutrient unbalance, even when none of the nutrients is below the critical level;
>and finally, allows to diagnose the total plant nutritional balance, through an unbalance index (Baldock & Schulte,1996).
Last March of 2007, the AMS Group of Companies started to adopt the DRIS Analysis and QuEFTS method in assessing nutrient balance for fertilization of Banana Plantations. Since then, DRIS Analysis and QuEFTS became the main tool in computing the requirements for fertilization of thier plantations. The process helps them save a lot on fertilizers giving them only the needed nutrient to be applied.