Abstract
Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus L.) is an unconventional plant or vegetable grown for ornamental, food and medicinal purposes. However, information on cultivation of the species involving organic residue is incipient. Therefore, aimed to evaluate plant growth, flower yield, and nutrient contents of leaves and flowers of Nasturtium cultivated with addition of chicken manure. Five doses of chicken manure were studied, applied in the soil incorporated (I) (1, 6, 10, 14 and 19 t ha-1) and cover (C) (1, 6, 10, 14 and 19 t ha-1) forms, using the experimental array Plan Puebla III, leading to nine combinations of doses and forms of adding the chicken manure, in randomized blocks with four replicates. The greatest plant height (35.75 cm) was achieved at 168 days after transplanting (DAT) under 10 t ha-1 I and 10 t ha-1 C. The greatest yield terms of in number (15.4 million ha-1) and fresh (10.45 t ha-1) and dry weights (0.849 t ha-1) of flowers were found by using doses close to 10 t ha-1 I and 10 t ha-1 C. To obtain the best development and yield of Nasturtium flowers, 10 t ha-1 I and 10 t ha-1 C of chicken manure should be used.
Highlights
The improvements of soil chemical attributes, especially in terms of greater availability of P, Ca, Mg, Cu, Zn and Mn (Table 1), with doses above 10 t ha-1 of chicken manure incorporated in the soil, can be justified by the fact that they are a good source of nutrients, contributing to an increase in organic matter
N content in the flowers (27.52 g kg-1) was lower than the value found by Sangalli et al (2004), who reported 35.6 g kg-1 in Nasturtium plants cultivated with 15 t ha-1 of semi-decomposed chicken manure applied to the soil; both values are within the recommended range (20-50 g kg-1)
The content of P (6.50 g kg-1) in flowers was above the one found by Sangalli et al (2004), ranging between 3.0 g kg-1 under chicken manure associated with nitrogen and 3.9 g kg-1, in comparison to those cultivated with nitrogen only
Summary
Leaves and flowers of Nasturtium are edible, used for preparation of salads, savory rolls and pâté, and the fruits, such as pickles and capers (Kinupp & Lorenzi, 2014). Nasturtium flowers have biological activities, associated with functional ones, in human food Their composition includes anthocyanins, ascorbic acid, phenolic compounds (Garzón & Wrolstad, 2009), flavonoids, glucosinolates, fatty acids, among others (Brondani et al, 2016). They have diuretic (Gasparotto Junior et al, 2012) and antihypertensive (Gasparotto Junior et al, 2011) properties
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