Nutrient Balance of Citrus Across the Mandarin Belts of India
India is a major producer of mandarin oranges. However, the average fruit yield remains below potential due in part to multiple nutrient deficiencies. Our objective was to elaborate compositional nutrient diagnosis (CND) log-ratio standards accounting for nutrient interactions and the dilution the l...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Horticulturae |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2311-7524/11/3/254 |
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| Summary: | India is a major producer of mandarin oranges. However, the average fruit yield remains below potential due in part to multiple nutrient deficiencies. Our objective was to elaborate compositional nutrient diagnosis (CND) log-ratio standards accounting for nutrient interactions and the dilution the leaf tissue. We hypothesized that equally or unequally weighted dual nutrient log ratios integrated into centered log ratios (<i>clr</i>) or weighted log ratios (<i>wlr</i>) influence the accuracy of the CND diagnosis. The database comprised 494 observations on ‘Nagpur’, ‘Khasi’, and ‘Kinnow’ cultivars surveyed in contrasting agroecosystems of India. Weights were provided by gain ratios that indicated the importance of the dual log ratio on crop performance. The cutoff yield was set at the upper high-yield quarter for each variety. Centered log ratios (<i>clrs</i>) and weighted log ratios (<i>wlrs</i>) returned accuracies of 0.7–0.8 depending on the machine learning classification model. The gain ratios were not contrasted enough to make a difference between <i>clr</i> and <i>wlr</i>. We derived <i>clr</i> and <i>wlr</i> nutrient standards following the Gradient Boosting model. In a case study, the <i>clr</i> and <i>wlr</i> returned similar diagnoses. The capacity of <i>clr</i> and <i>wlr</i> to generalize to unseen cases and correct nutrient imbalance should be further verified in fertilizer trials. The diagnosis could also be conducted at a local scale, thanks to the Euclidian geometry and additivity of <i>clr</i> and <i>wlr</i> variables. |
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| ISSN: | 2311-7524 |