Perfecting Nutrient Delivery Through Fertigation Nutrient management can get tricky, even for the most seasoned grower. Finding the ideal nutrient delivery method may involve some degree of trial and error, but there a number of factors that can help growers narrow down what nutrient delivery method makes the most sense, based on their crop needs. Fertigation, which is a combination of the words fertilization and irrigation, is the process of adding water-soluble nutrients into an irrigation system. Fertigation can be accomplished in three ways, by hand, using a dilute tank or an in-line injection system. Hand-Feed Only When Necessary Hand-measuring nutrients and water is not only tedious, it also carries a high rate of error. It’s quite common for growers to overdose or under dose fertilizer and incorrectly distribute it. One mistake can devastate yield and force growers to begin the growing cycle from scratch. However, it’s important to note that when plants require a pesticide or a cleanser, hand measuring is perfectly acceptable, as manually dosing pesticides or cleanser greatly helps in avoiding unnecessary damage to the plant. Micro dosing, or the act of constantly spoonfeeding small amount of nutrients to soil-based crops, is another part of fertilization that growers can overlook. Will Kacheris, who’s helped many growers implement automated fertigation systems at GrowSpan, explained, “Micro dosing is an important part of a commercial operation where certain yields and distinct properties of plants are expected by the buyer, think of a certain color flower, therefore nutrients must be precisely delivered to the plant.” He continued, “Additionally, and probably most known, is that micro dosing significantly reduces fertilizer cost and waste instead of spreading it through an entire area, usually doing nothing but feeding weeds.” Although micro dosing may become timeconsuming, growers at least won’t have to bother with temperature or moisture adjustments in order