Nutrient Solution Calculator
Nutrient Solution (NS) calculator is an EXCEL™ spreadsheet developed by Dr. Luca Incrocci (Dipartimento di Biologia delle Piante Agrarie, University of Pisa) to assist growers and consultants in the calculation of salts concentrations of nutrient stock solutions.
NS calculator has a user-friendly interface and a database (it can be edited and extended by the user) of:
- Nutrient recipes for some greenhouse crops,
- Nutrient content and prices of different fertilizers and acids;
The spreadsheet calculates the composition and the cost of nutrient stocks (fertigation system A+B) based on:
- Ion composition of irrigation water;
- Crop recipe (i.e. pH, EC and nutrient concentrations of the nutrient solution to be delivered to the crop);
- Technical characteristics of the fertigation device (i.e., volume of stock tanks and dilution ratio).
The calculator also assesses the possible occurrence of salt precipitations in the nutrient stocks due to excessive concentration. User’s instructions are provided step-by-step in specific dialog boxes, which are identified by ‘?’ in orange cell.
