Building a Dosing Plan for Your Farm — A Simple Framework, and Why the Plan Should Include Your Fertigation
- The three factors a dosing plan should account for.
- A simple starting framework, step by step.
- Why reviewing nutrient delivery is part of a good oxygen plan.
8.1 What a Plan Accounts For
A dosing plan should account for three things: the irrigation system in use, the crop's growth stage, and any existing signs of oxygen stress or irrigation-line build-up.
8.2 A Starting Framework
- Establish a baseline. Begin at the standard 1:15,000 rate, applied at the frequency appropriate to your irrigation system.
- Monitor early response. Watch root development and canopy vigour over the first few weeks — and, where satellite or drone monitoring is available, NDVI trends (see Chapter 10).
- Review nutrient delivery. As root-zone conditions improve and a crop begins to grow more actively, an existing nutrient schedule can become the limiting factor rather than oxygen. A plan that never revisits fertigation may understate what better oxygen conditions can support, so review nutrient delivery alongside the dosing itself.
- Extend to line maintenance. For systems with a history of biofilm, algae or clogging, build the irrigation-line benefit (Chapter 6) into the plan so it compounds with the root-zone effect.
The easiest step to miss is the third one. Improving oxygen can reveal nutrients as the next limit — so an oxygen plan that ignores fertigation may quietly sell itself short.
8.3 Tailor It to Your Farm
Because every farm is different, the most reliable plan is one built around your specific crop, system and current conditions. BactiDigest can help put that plan together.
Start at the baseline rate for your system, watch how the crop responds over the first few weeks, and review your fertigation as growth picks up — because improving oxygen can reveal nutrients as the next thing to adjust. Tailor the plan to your farm rather than a fixed rate.