Potassium fertilization in pineapple fruit quality

Jéssica Morais Cunha,Luiz Carlos Santos Caetano,Diego Alves Peçanha,Marlene Evangelista Vieira,Marta Simone Mendonça Freitas,Almy Junior Cordeiro De Carvalho

doi:10.1590/0100-29452021018

Abstract

Abstract Potassium is a mineral nutrient that affects the growth and quality of pineapple fruits. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of ‘Vitória’ pineapple fruits submitted to application of potassium doses. The experiment was carried out from May 2017 to November 2018, in the municipality of São Francisco do Itabapoana (RJ), Brazil. The design was randomized blocks, with four replicates. Treatments were five K2O doses: 0; 6; 12; 18 and 24 g plant-1, applied as KCl, split into two applications after flower induction. Fruit and crown fresh masses, fruit and crown diameters, fruit and crown lengths, titratable acidity, soluble solids, vitamin C, juice pH and soluble solids/titratable acidity ratio were evaluated. Potassium fertilization promoted greater fruit length, diameter and mass. Titratable acidity, soluble solids and vitamin C values increased linearly as a function of potassium doses. Potassium fertilization improves the quality of ‘Vitória’ pineapple fruits under field conditions.

Highlights

Material and methodsBrazil is the third world’s largest pineapple producer (FAO, 2019)
Despite the importance of balanced fertilization for this crop, there is little information about the effects of potassium fertilization doses on yield and quality of ‘Vitória’ pineapple fruits, which is a recent pineapple cultivar resistant to fusariosis (VENTURA et al, 2009)
The use of fertilizers in pineapple cultivation occurs because soils in tropical regions may have low levels of available potassium (K) and, it is necessary to complement this nutrient with fertilizers to provide sustainable yields due to the high demand for this nutrient

Summary

Introduction

Material and methodsBrazil is the third world’s largest pineapple producer (FAO, 2019). The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of ‘Vitória’ pineapple fruits submitted to application of K doses. K fertilization linearly increased the whole fruit mass, uncrowned fruit mass, fruit diameter, central cylinder diameter, soluble solids (SS), vitamin C and titratable acidity (TA) and linearly reduced the SS/TA ratio of juice from ‘Vitoria’ pineapple fruits (Figures 2 and 3).

Objectives

Results

Conclusion