Fertilization and nutrition for cut flowers
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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 cut flowers Pick one greenhouse plot of one variety. We picked Lote 1: Freedom, a red rose, on 0.48 ha under greenhouse at about 2,550 m, 31,200 plants from June 2021, loam soil and drip. Every number below is for that plot. - 2
Start from the Nutrition button Under the question box, tap Nutrition. ORTH offers five ready-made questions, from reading a soil, water or leaf test to a season-long program. Tap one and ORTH asks it straight away, or type your own question. For cut flowers A rose plot never stops: after each cut a new flush grows, buds and is harvested. Nutrition follows the stage of that flush more than the month of the year. - 3
Ask for a year-round program We tapped Build a season-long nutrition program for this crop. ORTH proposed 23 actions from 5 November 2026 to 25 October 2027, for nutrition, monitoring and checks of the fertigation equipment. It starts with an audit of the current fertilizers, rates and injector settings, a record of the crop and the root zone, and water, soil and leaf samples. Then it follows each flush through post-cut recovery, stem elongation, visible bud, flowering and harvest to the cycle reset. Exact ratios, feed EC and tank quantities wait for the analyses, and ORTH rated it three stars. - 4
Fill in what ORTH cannot know When we opened the proposal, 1 of the 23 actions had no due date: approving the exact recipe for each stage. ORTH left it open because it depends on when the lab results arrive. The plan cannot be saved until that field is filled in. The calcium target from the farm records is in the plan only as a candidate to check. - 5
Give the cut date, get the phases We told ORTH that the last harvest cut finished on 26 October. It took that date as day 0 and used 80 to 90 days from cut to harvest for Freedom at about 2,550 m as a provisional range, with 85 days as the working midpoint. The phases: post-cut recovery to 9 November, stem elongation to 14 December, bud development to 13 January, flowering and harvest from 14 to 24 January, and the cycle reset from 25 January, once the last marketable stems are cut. In a greenhouse, inside temperature and light count more than outdoor weather when development runs off the calendar, so record the first, middle and last marketable cuts to give the plot its own cycle length. - 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 cut flowers We asked ORTH to save the five phases as a plan with one dated action per phase. On Lote 1 this saved 5 actions, from post-cut recovery on 26 October to the cycle reset on 25 January. - 7
Ask what changes for pale varieties We asked what changes for a white or pale variety such as Vendela, for spray roses and for roses in rice husk or coir. The five phases stay, but do not copy the quantities or the calendar of Freedom. For pale varieties ORTH advised a steadier, less aggressive program from late elongation to harvest: no sudden rise in nitrogen or ammonium, enough potassium without holding back calcium and magnesium, and magnesium and iron kept available through root-zone pH. Keep EC steady and salty foliar residues away from opening flowers, because burn and stains show on pale petals. Date the phases from the variety’s own shoots, buds and harvest. - 8
Spray roses For spray roses, ORTH bases nutrition on the active shoots and buds per area. Keep feeding through lateral shoot and cluster growth, and do not taper when the first flower of the cluster is cut: wait until the cluster is finished. Keep calcium steady, potassium and magnesium balanced, and boron careful, raising it only after an analysis or a confirmed deficiency. More buds can raise total demand, but that is no reason to raise every nutrient. - 9
Roses in rice husk or coir In substrate the program becomes nutrient solution and drainage management. Use smaller, more frequent pulses, work out the fertilizer from the delivered concentration and the irrigation volume, and measure EC and pH in both the feed and the drainage, because the feed alone cannot show salts building up around the roots. Check that coir is washed and buffered. Rice husk behaves differently when fresh, aged, composted or carbonised, so the rice husk types are not interchangeable, and neither are coir and rice husk.
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