Abstract
This study aimed at estimating the wood ash as a corrective and fertilizer in the safflower crop. This study was done with respect to the development, growth, and production of safflower in response to the wood ash doses applied to Oxisol of the Brazilian Cerrado biome. Adopting the completely randomized design and using five wood ash doses (0, 8, 16, 24, 32 g dm-3) and six replicates, the experiments were performed under greenhouse conditions. Each experimental unit included a 2 dm3 pot, filled with soil that had been incubated earlier for 30 days. The variables studied included soil pH, plant height (cm), stem diameter (mm), number of leaves (plant-1), SPAD index, internal and external diameters of the chapters (cm), number of chapters (plant-1), chapters dry mass (g pot-1), shoot dry mass (g pot-1), volume (cm3 pot-1) and root dry mass (g pot-1) Analysis of variance and subsequent regression test were performed for all the data using SISVAR software, at 5% probability for both. The variables internal and external diameter of the chapters and root volume showed no significant differences. The soil pH revealed a significant effect of the wood ash application tending towards linearity, as did the other vegetative variables of plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves and SPAD index. The productive constituents exhibited improved development when the wood ash was applied to the soil in doses of around 24 g dm-3 or more.
Highlights
Safflower, with Asia and Africa being the centers of origin, has a long history of domestication since 2000 BC and was principally utilized as a yellow food and textile dye (Chapman et al, 2010)
Wood ash doses were observed to raise the soil pH by up to 22%, on comparing the control treatment to the soil fertilized with a dose of 32 g dm-3 (Figure 1)
The wood ash doses caused a rise in the plant height to up to 58%, when the 32 g dm-3 dose was added, compared to the control treatment lacking the wood ash fertilization (Figure 2)
Summary
With Asia and Africa being the centers of origin, has a long history of domestication since 2000 BC and was principally utilized as a yellow food and textile dye (Chapman et al, 2010). In cases of no-tillage systems, when crop rotation is required, and in those cultivars highly suitable as a second crop, safflower provides a viable substitute in these production systems (Goedert et al, 2002; EMBRAPA, 2013). To sustain and optimize the maximum productive potential, fertilizers were introduced to raise or at least maintain the yield of the agricultural systems. Issues like water table contamination, and absence of phosphate and limestone reserves, are matters of concern. In such scenarios, the application of agroindustry-generated solid waste can be a more sustainable substitute and has been producing remarkable results in the literature (Fixen, 2009; Pantano et al, 2016)
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