POTASSIUM FERTILIZATION, COMPOST AND BIO-FERTILIZER FOR IMPROVING POTATO PRODUCTIVITY, ITS QUALITY AND PROFITABILITY IN SANDY SOIL

Document Type : original papers

Authors

Soils, Water and Environment Res. Inst., Agric. Res. Center, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

Nutrient management become more important to be discussed to obtain optimum yield with maximum profitability, So, two field experiments were conducted in spilt plot design at El-Sharawy village in EL-Bostan area – Noubaria Region, Elbehera governorate (Latitude 30° 43' 22.01" N, Longitude 30° 16' 44.50" E) during the winter growing seasons of 2014 and 2015 on potato (c.v. spunta), to evaluate the effect of organic manure at two rates (10 and 20 m3 compost fed-1) with or without seed potato inoculation with potassium release bacteria (KRB) "Bacillus circulans"  (Org1, Org1+Bio, Org2 and Org2+Bio ), four K treatments (K1: 96 kg K2O fed-1 as K-sulfate (SOP), K2: 48 kg K2O fed-1 as SOP+ 1% K2O foliar as SOP,K3: 48 kg K2O fed-1 as feldspar (FDS) + 1% K2O foliar and K4: 24 kg K2O fed-1 as FDS+ 1% K2O foliar) and their interactions on potato yield and quality. Results reveal that addition of different K-treatments as SOP or FDS with foliar spray of 1% K2O significantly affected shoot fresh and dry weights, tuber yield and its quality parameters (specific gravity, starch and carbohydrate %) and NPK-uptake in favor of SOP. Also, the values of plant growth parameters, tuber yield, tuber quality parameters and NPK-uptake were increased with increasing compost rate from 10 to 20 m3 fed-1 along with KRB inoculation. Interaction between Org2+Bio and K2 produced the highest values of tuber yield (16.697 t fed-1) and NPK-uptake, whereas, higher values of tuber quality parameters were recorded under interactions of (Org1+Bio*K2 or K3) and (Org2+Bio*K2 or K3). For economic evaluation, results showed that K2 and K3 treatments along with 10 m3 compost fed-1+Bio were superior for net return (NR) and investment factor (IF), since the highest values of NR and IF were 11247 L.E fed-1 and 1.93 with interaction Org1+Bio*K3.

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