Abstract
The “soilless” cultivation of blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) in containers with peat as substrate allows overcoming the problem of unsuitable soils, thus enhancing the spread of this crop in new areas. Since the use of peat presents several critical environmental and economic sustainability issues, the evaluation of alternative solutions is required. The effectiveness of compost produced with solid digestate and residues from the vine-wine chain to replace part of the peat was therefore tested. Micropropagated plants of cultivar Duke grown in three substrates consisting of a mixture of commercial peat with three compost fractions (10, 20, 40%) were compared with plants grown in 100% unfertilized or fertilized peat (0.3 g of Osmocote per pot). Plant height did not significantly differ between the five theses at the end of the trial, whereas the total number of nodes per plant was higher than in the control theses, due to a greater development of secondary shoots. The nutritional status of the plants, monitored with Dualex, during the growing season, was generally not significantly different in the innovative substrates compared to peat alone. In mid-summer the plants grown in substrates with compost showed the best nitrogen balance index (NBI values). Plants cultivated with medium-high percentages of compost (20–40%) showed a lower degree of defoliation at the end of the trial, dependent on a slower decline of vegetative activity. The final destructive measures of fresh and dry weight of biomass and of its partitioning between roots and shoots highlight that the use of compost did not negatively affect the production of biomass, but rather, in the theses with the highest percentages of compost (20–40%), root development was stimulated.
Highlights
The highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) is becoming the most popular among the cultivated berries, because of consumer interest in the health properties and sensory attributes of its fruits [1,2,3]
Solid digestate was composted with chips (1 cm in length) of vineyard winter prunings mixed at a ratio of 15.0–83.3% in dry weight, respectively
These results suggest that the plants grown on compost-based substrates showed on the whole a greater development of secondary shoots, often even small ones, which inevitably raised the average number of nodes and total leaf area per plant (Table 4)
Summary
The highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) is becoming the most popular among the cultivated berries, because of consumer interest in the health properties and sensory attributes of its fruits [1,2,3]. A large part of the arable land in the world is acidic [4], most of it is not suitable for the cultivation of blueberry due to the geographical distribution of these areas in inappropriate latitudes and because the acid reaction may be the effect of acid rain and poor farming practices, conditions that prevent a successful production activity. For this reason, there is a growing interest in the “soilless” cultivation of blueberry in containers, using proper substrates to overcome the problem of unsuitable traditional soils [5,6]. The trials of Sullivan et al [7] have shown that composts can be used to increase soil organic matter for blueberry, but limits to N content (total N < 20 g kg−1 )
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