E. Tarantino and G. Disciglio and L. Frabboni and A. Libutti and G. Gatta and A. Gagliaridi and A. Tarantino
Effects of Biostimulant Application on QualiQuantitative Characteristics of Cauliflower, Pepper and Fennel Crops under Organic and Conventional Fertilization
734 - 738
2015
9
7
International Journal of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
https://publications.waset.org/pdf/10001687
https://publications.waset.org/vol/103
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
Nowadays, the main goal for modern horticultural
production is an increase the quality. In recent years, the use of
organic fertilizers or biostimulants that can be applied in agriculture
to improve qualiquantitative crop yields has encountered increasing
interest. Biostimulants are gaining importance also for their possible
use in organic and sustainable agriculture, to avoid excessive
fertilizer applications. Consecutive experimental trials were carried
out in the Apulia region (southern Italy) on three herbaceous crops
(cauliflower, pepper, fennel) grown in pots under conventional and
organic fertilization systems without and with biostimulants. The aim
was to determine the effects of three biostimulants (Siapton®10L,
Micotech L, Lysodin AlgaFert) on qualiquantitative yield
characteristics. At harvest, the qualiquantitative yield characteristics
of each crop were determined. All of the experimental data were
subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA), and when significant
effects were detected, the means were compared using Tukey’s tests.
These data show large differences in these yield characteristics
between conventional and organic crops, particularly highlighting
higher yields for the conventional crops, while variable results were
generally observed when the biostimulants were applied. In this
context, there were no effects of the biostimulants on the quantitative
yield, whereas there were low positive effects on the qualitative
characteristics, as related to higher dry matter content of cauliflower,
and higher soluble solids content of pepper. Moreover, there were
evident positive effects of the biostimulants with fennel, due to the
lower nitrate content. These latter data are in line with most of the
published literature obtained for other herbaceous crops.
Open Science Index 103, 2015