The Ecophysiological Needs of Plums and Their Impact on Ecological Production of Plum in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Organic farming takes up more and more areas in agricultural production. It is based on the principles of preserving human and animal health and maintaining the balance in agrobiocenosis and therefore prohibits the use of a majority of water-soluble mineral fertilizers and phytopharmaceuticals of chemical origin (except those from the list of allowed products). In ecological farming of plums, optimization of fertilization is very important, which must comply with ecological principles and regulations which included fertilization with a relatively narrow range of allowed organic fertilizers (manure, compost, manure, slurry, peat, guano, sawdust) and mineral additives (calcium carbonate, crude phosphates, basic slag, raw potassium salt, potassium sulphate, gypsum, wood ash, calcium chloride, sodium chloride, etc.).

Nutrition methods in organic plum production are different from nutrition in conventional production, primarily due to a limited selection of available fertilizers, and the most important difference is the inability to use water-soluble individual and complex fertilizers. It is precisely for this reason that in organic agriculture, the emphasis on maintaining humidity, optimum pH and soil moisture is considerably more important than necessary prerequisites for sufficient availability of nutrients in the soil.