Irrigation and water for strawberry
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Pick the plot first Open a new chat and tap Plots (All) under the question box. Choose the plot you want advice for. ORTH then works from that plot’s crop, variety, soil and documents, and from the farm weather. For strawberry Pick one plot of one variety. We picked Fresas: Fortuna, a short-day strawberry, on 1.50 ha under macrotunnel, 90,000 plants planted in October, sandy soil and drip. Every number below is for that plot. - 2
Start from the Irrigation button Pick the plot and tap Irrigation. ORTH offers questions such as this week’s schedule, a water-quality check, or turning the water requirement into runtime for your system. Tap one to ask it. For strawberry Sandy soil holds little water, and young strawberry roots are shallow. Small, regular events keep the root zone moist without pushing water below the roots. - 3
Ask for this week’s schedule We tapped Build this week’s irrigation schedule for this plot. ORTH proposed small establishment irrigations of 21.00 and 17.25 m³ on 5 and 6 November, 21.00 m³ on 7 November only if the root zone is not already wet, a fourth only if the beds are dry on 8 November, and nothing on 9 and 10 November when the heavy rain arrives. Water early in the day, and shorten or cancel an event with ponding or moist roots. It could not give minutes yet, because the plot had no dripper flow on record. - 4
Give the dripper layout, get minutes We added one drip line per bed, 1.6 L/h emitters every 20 cm, beds 1.1 m apart and one sector. ORTH worked out 13,636 m of line, 68,182 emitters and a flow of 109.09 m³/h, so 7.27 mm per hour. That makes 21 m³ an 11 minute 33 second run and 17.25 m³ a 9 minute 29 second run. To check it, read the water meter on one timed run and measure emitter flow at the start, middle and end of the sector. - 5
Pulse or one run? ORTH advised against splitting these events routinely, because runs of about ten minutes would become very short pulses that repeat line filling and pressure build-up. Split a 21 m³ event into two runs of about 5.8 minutes only if you see runoff, water moving along the bed, ponding or saturated crowns. - 6
Save the proposal as actions When ORTH proposes a plan, tap Review to see every action with its date, category and instructions. Change or add actions if you need to, then tap Create. The actions land in the plot’s plans, ready to assign to someone on your team. For strawberry On Fresas this saved the strawberry irrigation plan for 5 to 10 November with 6 actions. We saved it before the minutes were worked out, so the actions hold volumes and the condition to check, and 9 and 10 November are checks without irrigation. - 7
Irrigation at flowering and fruit We asked how irrigation changes once Fortuna flowers and carries fruit. ORTH said to raise the daily runtime step by step as flowering and fruit load increase, and to avoid dry and wet swings during flowering, fruit set and filling. Keep an early event as the base and add a daytime pulse only when root-zone readings show the bed drying. Avoid large late-day events and, at harvest, do not hold water back and then give a big irrigation just before picking. That pattern can give uneven size and softer fruit. The exact spring runtime needs that week’s ET₀, the flowering and fruit load and root-zone moisture. - 8
Irrigation in coir bags In coir on raised tables, ORTH replaces the longer soil events with several short daytime pulses, adjusted to radiation, crop demand and bag moisture. Start after the plants begin to use water and stop early enough to let the bags dry back overnight. Measure feed and drain volume and EC. If the drain EC rises above the feed, review the pulse interval, the volume and the leaching; if too much drains, make the pulses smaller or fewer. Make sure every bag gets the same delivery, and do not make pulses so short that filling the line takes most of the run.
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