Entwicklung eines Prognosemodells für den N-Düngebedarf im ökologischen Gemüsebau

Summary

Several field grown vegetables are known to have a short vegetation period coupled with a high nitrogen demand. The proposed amendment of the German fertilization ordinance provides several changes. Thus in future organic vegetable farmers have to adapt their fertilization to reduce nitrogen surplus but still produce vegetables with good quality. The aim of our work was to predict the nitrogen supply in organic vegetable production with a simple model. This should allow organic farmers to reduce the nitrogen surplus and facilitate them to meet the regulation of the new fertilization ordinance. Therefore the parameters to predict the maximal nitrogen supply in organic fertilizers and their mineralization constants were estimated by single kinetic functions. We now have the possibility to predict the nitrogen mineralization or immobilization dependent on fertilizer quality. Finally, the calculated parameters are implemented in the N-Expert software and give organic vegetable farmers the possibility to predict the nitrogen demand in their production systems.