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Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth
Organic agriculture is becoming increasingly important, and many natural products are now available for organic farmers to manage and improve their crops. Several ethnobotanical studies have indicated that the use of nettle slurry as fertilizer in organic farming for horticultural crops is spreading...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5944444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29761049 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4729 |
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author | Garmendia, Alfonso Raigón, María Dolores Marques, Olmo Ferriol, María Royo, Jorge Merle, Hugo |
author_facet | Garmendia, Alfonso Raigón, María Dolores Marques, Olmo Ferriol, María Royo, Jorge Merle, Hugo |
author_sort | Garmendia, Alfonso |
collection | PubMed |
description | Organic agriculture is becoming increasingly important, and many natural products are now available for organic farmers to manage and improve their crops. Several ethnobotanical studies have indicated that the use of nettle slurry as fertilizer in organic farming for horticultural crops is spreading. Sometimes, however, the consequences of using these natural products have been poorly evaluated, and there is very little scientific evidence for the effects of using these slurries. In this study, we aimed to analyze the possible effect of nettle slurry on potato yields produced by organic farming. To achieve this main objective, we assessed the effect of nettle slurry on potato yields, plant size and growth parameters, chlorophyll content, and the presence of pests and diseases. Different slurry doses were assessed in 36 plots and nine variables were measured during the crop cycle. Under these field experimental conditions, nettle slurry (including one treatment with Urtica in combination with Equisetum) had no significant effects on yield, chlorophyll content, or the presence of pests and diseases in organic potato crops. The highest chlorophyll content was found in the double dose treatment, but the difference was not significant. This result, together with a small improvement in plant height with the double dose treatment, might indicate very slight crop enhancement which, under our experimental conditions, was not enough to improve yield. The Urtica and Equisetum slurry chemical analyses showed very low levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5944444 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59444442018-05-14 Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth Garmendia, Alfonso Raigón, María Dolores Marques, Olmo Ferriol, María Royo, Jorge Merle, Hugo PeerJ Agricultural Science Organic agriculture is becoming increasingly important, and many natural products are now available for organic farmers to manage and improve their crops. Several ethnobotanical studies have indicated that the use of nettle slurry as fertilizer in organic farming for horticultural crops is spreading. Sometimes, however, the consequences of using these natural products have been poorly evaluated, and there is very little scientific evidence for the effects of using these slurries. In this study, we aimed to analyze the possible effect of nettle slurry on potato yields produced by organic farming. To achieve this main objective, we assessed the effect of nettle slurry on potato yields, plant size and growth parameters, chlorophyll content, and the presence of pests and diseases. Different slurry doses were assessed in 36 plots and nine variables were measured during the crop cycle. Under these field experimental conditions, nettle slurry (including one treatment with Urtica in combination with Equisetum) had no significant effects on yield, chlorophyll content, or the presence of pests and diseases in organic potato crops. The highest chlorophyll content was found in the double dose treatment, but the difference was not significant. This result, together with a small improvement in plant height with the double dose treatment, might indicate very slight crop enhancement which, under our experimental conditions, was not enough to improve yield. The Urtica and Equisetum slurry chemical analyses showed very low levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. PeerJ Inc. 2018-05-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5944444/ /pubmed/29761049 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4729 Text en © 2018 Garmendia et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Agricultural Science Garmendia, Alfonso Raigón, María Dolores Marques, Olmo Ferriol, María Royo, Jorge Merle, Hugo Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth |
title | Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth |
title_full | Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth |
title_fullStr | Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth |
title_full_unstemmed | Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth |
title_short | Effects of nettle slurry (Urtica dioica L.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield and plant growth |
title_sort | effects of nettle slurry (urtica dioica l.) used as foliar fertilizer on potato (solanum tuberosum l.) yield and plant growth |
topic | Agricultural Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5944444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29761049 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4729 |
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