Abstract

BEDOYA CARDOSO, Mario  and  SALAZAR MORENO, Raquel. Optimizing fertilizer use in coffee crops. Rev. Mex. Cienc. Agríc [online]. 2014, vol.5, n.spe8, pp.1433-1439. ISSN 2007-0934.

The falling price of coffee in different stock exchanges in the world, makes this activity become less profitable due to high production costs. Labor and fertilization are the most important factors in production. Therefore, the present study aims to minimize the costs of fertilizer use per hectare-year, using linear programming with different nutritional sources available in the Gigante municipality market in the Huila department, Colombia, considering crop requirements given by Sadeghian and González (2012). Results indicate that using simple nutritional sources, fertilization costs per hectare-year are minimized in 38.52% ($ 329.58 USD) compared to using Hydranova, a compound fertilizer of common use.

Keywords : coffee; macronutrients; cost reduction; nutritional requirements.

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