Abstract
UFP’s are unconventional food plants, which can be included in food and feed, but underutilized because they are few known and/or researched. Portulaca oleracea Linn, known as a wigworm, is considered a weed due to its easy spread in different places, has potential to be included in the diet of people, so that they can take advantage of its medicinal, nutritional and landscape benefits. In view of the above, the objective of this research was to evaluate the vegetative development of the bollworm cultivated in different substrates to obtain a better production of green mass besides adding higher medicinal and/or nutritional contents. The experimental design was a completely randomized design with 6 treatments: 1-Barranco soil (Witness), 2-Soil + Bovine manure, 3-Soil + Commercial substrate, 4-Soil + Charred rice straw, 5-Soil + Bovine manure + Charred rice straw, 6-Soil + Bovine manure + Commercial substrate and 5 replicates. The seed germination rate was evaluated at five, ten and 15 days after sowing (DAS). At 70 DAS the total fresh mass of the plants and total dry mass in grams, plant height, main root length and number of leaves were evaluated. The substrate composed of ravine soil + bovine manure + charcoal rice straw provided the best indices of development of the bollworm plant. The combination of three components for the formation of a substrate favored fresh and dry biomass.
Highlights
Weeds are extremely important in the agricultural context, being responsible for losses that occur in the productivity and quality of products of economic interest derived from crops
This vigorous development can be explained according to Carneiro and Smiljanic (2016), who report that the bellhop has C4 metabolism, due to the presence of a second sheath around the radially arranged vascular bundle in the leaf, so they are tolerable for long periods of deficit water
The invasive plant used for this research was Portulaca oleracea Linn., popularly known as bollwort
Summary
Weeds are extremely important in the agricultural context, being responsible for losses that occur in the productivity and quality of products of economic interest derived from crops. Portulaca oleracea is considered a weed due to its easy propagation and dissemination. There have been reports of this species since ancient Egyptian times, but their peculiarities are only having greater relevance in the field of research today, mainly because of their medicinal properties (Okafor et al, 2014). In this way allied to this important function, this plant can be included in human food and still be used as ornamental, since it produces enough flowers, conditions that must be considered
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