Nitrogen Sources and Doses in Arugula Development

Helena S N Santos,Regina Cássia F Ribeiro,Gabriele A Sizilio,Liliane S Silva,David Gabriel Campos Pereira,Michele X V Megda,Maickon W P Meira,Matheus M S Damasceno,Renato M Alves,Fábio C Ribeiro,Danielle R R Dias,José A Dos Santos Neto,Eliza C C Queiroz

doi:10.5539/jas.v14n4p62

Helena S N Santos, Regina Cássia F Ribeiro + Show 11 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5539/jas.v14n4p62

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Abstract

Leafy vegetables have a high demand for nitrogen availability; however, excessive nitrogen supply causes economic, environmental and agronomic losses, compromising food security. Given the above, the objective was to assess the agronomic responses of arugula that are associated with different nitrogen sources and doses. The experiment was run under greenhouse conditions. A randomized block design was employed; the blocks were arranged in a factorial scheme (2 &times; 4), using two sources (urea and calcium nitrate) and four nitrogen doses (0, 40, 120 and 360 mg kg-1), with four replications. Thirty-five days after transplanting, the following were assessed: plant height, number of leaves, shoot fresh mass, root fresh mass, shoot dry mass, root dry mass, shoot/root dry matter ratio, leaf area, and leaf nitrogen content. It was found that nitrogen fertilization optimizes crop development and yield. Doses of 100 to 272 kg ha-1 promote increase in plant height and leaf number, respectively. Under the conditions studied, 200 kg ha-1 of N is recommended as a dose of maximum economic efficiency in arugula production. Calcium nitrate is indicated as the best nitrogen source for the production of the crop.

Highlights

The arugula (Eruca sativa) market has been constantly expanding in recent years
Despite knowing that proper fertilization management is one of the main factors that maximize the productive efficiency of crops, and that unspecific recommendations can lead to insufficient responses in terms of yield and product quality, studies addressing the nutritional management of arugula are scarce, especially with regard to the optimization of nitrogen fertilization, an extremely relevant factor that raises production costs by up to 16.6% (Nascimento, Nascimento, & Cecílio Filho, 2018)
The leaf area (LA) and root dry mass (RDM) variables showed no significant difference between treatments at a 5% significance level (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

The arugula (Eruca sativa) market has been constantly expanding in recent years. The vegetable’s predominance is widely observed among those chosen by consumers, mainly for its nutritional value (Chun et al, 2017; Jasper, Wagstaff, & Bell, 2020). Despite knowing that proper fertilization management is one of the main factors that maximize the productive efficiency of crops, and that unspecific recommendations can lead to insufficient responses in terms of yield and product quality, studies addressing the nutritional management of arugula are scarce, especially with regard to the optimization of nitrogen fertilization, an extremely relevant factor that raises production costs by up to 16.6% (Nascimento, Nascimento, & Cecílio Filho, 2018). In this context, the objective was to assess the agronomic responses of arugula that are associated with different nitrogen sources and doses

Material and Methods

Results and Discussion

Conclusions