Alabama container nurseries

摘要

The ornamental container nursery industry is large contributor to Alabama's green industry. However, it relies on intensive irrigation and fertilization to achieve high economic yields. In this study, observational data including application rate, distribution uniformity, and leaching fraction were collected from four Alabama container nurseries in July 2018 to assess current irrigation management practices. All fournurseries fell short of the recommended distribution uniformity (DU) value of greater than 80%. One nursery exceeded the recommended maximum leaching fraction value of 15%. Improvements can be implemented to improve efficiency, reduce inputs, and decrease environmental impact. Effort should be put forth to increase education and training for irrigation management in container nurseries.