MINERAL NUTRITION AND FRUIT QUALITY OF TEMPERATE ZONE FRUIT TREES

G. Bünemann
The subject of this opening session might cover the knowledge accumulated by research workers for at least 50 years. Of course, some basic knowledge dates back even into the days of Justus von Liebig who became professor of chemistry in Giebetaen, Germany, at the age of 21. In 1840 he published a book on mineral nutrition of plants and is considered the father of mineral fertilizer application in agriculture. Mineral fertilizers are often called ‘artificial fertilizers’, particularly by those who frown upon cultivation systems which they do not consider ‘natural’ or ‘biological’. Even in the modern German Brockhaus Encyclopaedia a comment is made that Liebig might have exaggerated the importance of mineral fertilizers. But in the same paragraph credit is given to Liebig for the tremendous increase in agricultural production and productivity during the last 100 years.

Although the meeting is concerned in more general terms with ‘mineral nutrition and fruit quality of temperate zone fruit trees’, it is tempting to devote too much time to disorders as affected by nutritional problems. In this case it is often an excess of nutrition, one element or the other, that has to take the blame for any quality defects. This paper does not resist that temptation and will try to hitch up the present meeting with the very useful discussions held previously at Haren (NL) and Bonn (Germany).

If we browse through older books on fruit production, we might find comments such as (Böttner, J. 1920): ‘Farmyard manure contains all nutrients in a relatively favourable proportion for plant roots. Artificial fertilizers normally contain only one nutrient. The most important ones are potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen’. These words sound pretty familiar to modern agronomists and horticulturists, and they will probably be heard in the next millenium. In the same book we find a comment on liquid manure: ‘If we apply liquid manure to a tree on a good and well-maintained soil which can produce fine fruits on its own, we get an excess; the fruits get afflicted by breakdown, bitter pit, and rot. This is not the fault of liquid manure per se; it should not be blamed, but the wrong treatment which aimed at something entirely out of reach’. The author had obviously drawn on knowledge from his own experience and from some of the literature available before the First World War. And it is indeed surprising, how much had been written about just one of the apple disorders, bitter pit, which to a large extent is due to

Bünemann, G. (1980). MINERAL NUTRITION AND FRUIT QUALITY OF TEMPERATE ZONE FRUIT TREES. Acta Hortic. 92, 3-10
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.1980.92.1
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1980.92.1

Acta Horticulturae