Effectiveness of Organic Fertigation and Moringa Leaf Extract Spray as an Alternative to Chemical Fertigation for Improving Yield and Quality of Lettuce under Soilless Condition

Abstract

TWO experiments were conducted at Sakha Agricultural Research Station, Bacteriology Lab greenhouse for studying the effect of fertigation with fish extract organic solution as an alternative to mineral nutrient solution as well as foliar spray with moringa leaf extract on morphological, chemical, microbial characteristics and yield of lettuce plant grown under soilless system during winter seasons of 2014 and 2015. In general, the results indicated that fertigation with the fish extract organic nutrient solution increase all the studied characteristics compared to fertigation with the mineral nutrient solution, except for NO3 content which sharply decreased due to organic nutrition treatment which attained 157.52 and 175.24 (mg plant-1) compared to 497.14 and 476.8 (mg plant-1) for mineral nutrition treatment at 2014 and 2015 seasons, respectively. Similarly, foliar spray with moringa extract with mineral nutrition decreased nitrate content (463.46 and 450.16 mg plant-1) lower than mineral nutrition without spray (497.14 and 476.8 mg plant-1) at 2014 and 2015 seasons, respectively. Therefore, positive results on vegetative growth, chemical characteristics and yield of lettuce plant grown under soilless system by using of fertigation with fish extract organic solution and foliar spray with moringa leaf extract to decrease the nutritive gap and vegetables nitrate pollution problems as well as partially avoid the problem of irrigation water shortage.