Abstract
In this study, two hydroponic experiments were conducted in nutrient solution growth system. Experiments were conducted in growth chamber of Erciyes University, Agricultural Faculty in Kayseri, Turkey. In the first experiment, 10 local Turkish bottle gourd genotypes and two commercial watermelon cultivars were screened under 2 N doses (0.3 mM and 3.0 mM N) in RBD design with three replications for six weeks. In the second experiment, four genotypes (N-efficient: 70-07 and 07-45, N-inefficient: 35-10 and 45-07) were selected and used as rootstock for grafting with N-inefficient watermelon cultivar (Crimson Sweet) under 2 N doses. The grafted N-efficient gourd genotypes (07-45 and 70-07) significantly contributed to growth and biomass production of the N-inefficient watermelon plants as compared to non-grafted control plants and thus showed a higher rootstock potential for watermelon. The N-efficiency of some gourd genotypes was associated with vigor root growth and active root system particularly at low N conditions. These traits could be useful characters to select ‘N-efficient’ bottle gourd rootstocks for sustainable agriculture in the future.
Highlights
Sustainability in food and agricultural production depends on the efficient use of natural resources
In agreement with several studies [15,16,17,18], our results clearly indicated that nitrogen has a pronounced positive effect on shoot growth and shoot N uptake which might have contributed to a high leaf area formation and a high photosynthetic and enzymatic (NRA) activity of leaves
Crimson Sweet at both low and high N rates. All these results suggested for us to develop a theory which proposes that a low yielding ‘N-inefficient’ watermelon cultivar (Crimson Sweet) can be improved when it is grafted onto ‘N-efficient’ gourd rootstocks
Summary
Sustainability in food and agricultural production depends on the efficient use of natural resources. To keep food production at the same level as population growth without using up or devastating the natural resources is not an easy task for sustainable agriculture. World population is increasing at a rate of 77 million per year and expected to be around 8.6 billion for the year 2030 and 9.6 billion for 2050 [1]. To meet the growing food demand of the population, food production has to increase over 70% from the current level [2]. An increase in food production requires higher fertilizer application. Nitrogen (N) is the quantitatively most important nutrient [3] which has an immediate effect on crop growth and yield improvement
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