Water, Sunlight, Nutrition!

I learned from a wise crop guru, whether assessing a problem or trying to start off the growing season on the right foot – water, sunlight and nutrition are the foundation for success.

by Chad Steiner

After finishing my undergraduate degree in Agricultural Economics in 2000, I decided to further my knowledge on production agriculture. I applied to the master’s program in Crop Science and dove into some advanced course work out of my comfort zone – genetics and cell biology, 500 level classes like plant pathology, soil nutrition & statistics. Plus, a transmission genetics course with out of this world smart folks. Our professor (Dr. Steve Jones, super geneticist) randomly called on one of us once each week to teach the class about that week’s research paper. I came away from these experiences able to file away some crop growing “building blocks”. After a year off to work at Chateau Ste. Michelle, I returned to finish my master’s while working for Syngenta full time in the Columbia Basin of Washington.

How does this all apply “Water, Sunlight, Nutrition”? 12 years, 4 roles and 4 states later, a gentleman everyone at Syngenta looked to for knowledge, Lou Hearn, boiled down caring for plants to – Water – Sunlight – Nutrition. Since Syngenta’s primary business was pesticides, Lou’s statement hit home. The crop protection pesticides we were selling were created to help “preserve” yield. If a plant didn’t have the essentials – Water, Sunlight & Nutrition, it wouldn’t thrive, let alone survive. Combine these 3 fundamentals with “The Farmers Shadow” and a foundation for plant care can be created. If you’re wondering – what’s “The Farmers Shadow”? It’s a metaphor indicating, if the “farmers” shadow is regularly cast upon they’re crops, the farmer will notice if the plants need water, sunlight or nutrition or if a pest has showed up.

With the rest of the article, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on each of the, maybe can we call them “elements” of plant care. I hope this helps you kick off the growing season for your garden or crops. Let’s assume all these scenarios we’re growing outdoors. The other outdoor scenario that might require special care is growing in pots. My experience with pots is they need more frequent watering – they ultimately don’t hold as much water.

1. Water
   • Water source: where is the water from? How is the quality of the water. During the 2014-2016 California drought, I learned the importance of testing our water. If its surface water (see prior article on water) – there could be all sorts of things “floating” in. If its ground water it may not stay consistent. The important note here is to verify if your water is ok for plants.
   • How much water does your plant need and how often? To me, this IS probably the most critical step during the growing season. The Farmers Shadow has to show up regularly. Some annual plants can perish in one hot afternoon. The good news is – showing up to look at them say, morning and evening, the plants will show if they need a drink. Many annual and perennial plants need 24”-54” of water (or 2 – 4.5 acre feet per acre) per year. Another major consideration is how much natural rainfall you receive and when. The overall goal for water management is determining when and how much (often based on length of watering).
     • Get a visual & show up often – if you’re getting ready to plant, the soils water at planting will vary if it’s a transplant vs. direct seed. Nothing can quite replace a shovel and your bare hands to dig down a bit and feel how wet the soil is. We could have a whole chapter on this alone. And it gets more complex when you think about every soils unique ability to hold water differs from others. Plants will give a visual queue if they need water, but this can often be harmful if we wait this long. The soil moisture is the ticket as it’s the “bank” the plant withdraws from. So feel your soil. Simply dig down into where you think the roots are, grab a handful and get a sense of if its dry or wet. This is the method we use for many of our annual crops. For our perennial crops we’re in our 5^th season using a modern technology called – Probe Schedule offered by Wilbur-Ellis. It has a probe 36” down into the soil with multiple sensors along the way to provide us a complete picture of soil moisture related to the plant’s needs. This has been a game changer for precision water management.
   • Scheduling works, but may not be ideal: watering on a timer…. It’s not a silver bullet. Yes, use a timer. We do as much as we can. However, as many of you already know – a watering schedule in May won’t work when temps climb in July. Again, the Farmers Shadow helps consider the environment and adjusts. We watch the weather. As much as it would be nice to have a precise schedule for some of our crops – it depends on the weather. If we see 105F coming, we may need to prepare the crops 5 days before by get all water caught up and at 100% before the heat comes. Going into big heat low on water would be like wishing you were already hydrated ½ way through a marathon – it can be hard to catch up. The other consideration is natural rainfall. Obviously sticking with a “schedule” after multiple rainfall events could result in over watering.
2. Sunlight
   • Awareness & Options: at first, it might seem like “how can I control sunlight” and yes, we’re not going to change the sun. But, we can consider variables.
     • Aspect – In perennial crops this relates to site selection. Is the potential vineyard or orchard site on a hill? Does that hill face North or South – aspect matters as it affects overall temperatures.
     • Shade – is there a need for adding shade? Is shade an option. In most cases likely not, but it’s a consideration. Shade can keep fruit bearing plants from getting sunburned. There are also other options such as commercial forms of basically clay that can be applied.
     • What plants grow well in the area you’ll be growing them? Check out the USDA Plant Hardiness Maps.
     • Plant populations. This can be a big one. Whether annual or perennial plants, how far apart they’re planted affects how much sunlight they’re getting. Plant too close and they can shade each other out. Plant too far away and you may not be “harvesting” the suns full potential. A key here is also getting the spacing right for sun but so the plants shade the ground to keep weeds from growing.
     • When’s my last frost date? Eager to plant annuals or worried about a flowering perennial. Frost date is something to consider. An early blooming perennial with blooms susceptible to frost might not be a good choice to grow in an area with later frost dates than the bloom date. Or if the new growth is very susceptible to being damaged by frost. As I write this I saw a recent news update on frost in Burgundy in early April – see more info and pictures here.
     • A note on pots. In my experience growing vegetable in pots, hot days can be very unforgiving. This goes back to water management and possibly considering shade.
     • The last note on sunlight refers to water management and is a segway into nutrient management. Well hydrated plants maximize use of sunlight. Well hydrated plants and proper soil moisture maximize use of soil nutrition.
3. Nutrition
   • Test, test, test. Start by knowing what you have in your soil. The “what” is specifically referring to the nutrients already in the soil. For example – if you’re going to grow dahlias, is there already nitrogen in the soil? How much? Dahlias don’t like too much nitrogen so this could impact how many blooms you grow and harvest. Another example is our grapes. We work with our Wilbur-Ellis team to test our soil and take petiole samples which then gives a baseline to build a precise organic fertilizer application.
     • Test your soil, or know what nutrients are in it. It may not be practical in all cases to “test”. You can guestimate based on what you may have applied last year. There are also ways to identify plant nutrient deficiencies.
   • Know your plants needs. Some plants require lots of Nitrogen, some don’t. This can be broken down into units – for example, how many units of Nitrogen does your crop need?
     • Here is a reference on vegetables from WSU – Vegetable Fertilizer Guide.
     • I really liked this guide on home orchard’s but also how it broke down plant nutrients. Home Orchard Fertilizer Applications.
   • Evaluate visually. Again, the farmers shadow will prove helpful here. Plants will usually give an indication if they’re missing something. However, this is a big however, once the deficiency can be seen, its likely already impacted your productivity. Better to start with testing. But, don’t be discouraged, a deficiency in one season can help you lead to a correction the following season. Yep, it’s a “well I guess we’ll have to address that one next year!”.
     • Here is a great article from WSU – Plant Nutrient Functions and Deficiency and Toxicity Symptoms.

Caption: up close late season in Pinot Noir. We determined this was nutrition need. We were able to make the adjustments in our fall organic fertilizer applications.

I sincerely hope this has been helpful. If you’re considering planting or if your trouble shooting how to improve – these are the foundational pieces. There’s some much more to consider outside these, but Lou Hearn taught us to consider these first. Like, what if I get aphids or how the heck do I know if I have a soil disease and what do I do or what are good organic forms of nitrogen to apply or what about crop rotation (yes, many crops don’t do well grown in the same place year after year after year). Have a great weekend y’all.