The use of organic manure for iceberg lettuce plants grown in substrates

International Symposium on the Horizons of Using Organic Matter and Substrates in Horticulture -- APR 06-09, 2002 -- CAIRO, EGYPTWOS: 000185090200006This research was carried out to compare inorganic nutrient solution as traditional hydroponic nutrition method with organic manure in substrate culture. The experiment was designed according to the split-split-plot design with 3 replicatees. Main plots, subplots and sub-subplots were assigned to nutrition methods (1. inorganic nutrient solution, 2. organic manure), substrates (1. perlite + clinoptilolite, 1:1; 2. perlite + clinoptilolite, 3:1; 3. tuff + clinoptilolite, 1:1; tuff + clinoptilolite, 3:1, v/v), and iceberg lettuce cultivars (1.Bombola, 2.Gloria), respectively. Cow manure was used as the source of organic manure and mixed to substrate before planting at 200 g per plant. During the growing season, only water was applied to the plants in organic manure treatment, whereas complete nutrient solution was applied to control plants daily via drip irrigation system. Chemical content of complete nutrient solution was as follows (mg/l): N 150, P 50, K 150, Mg 50, Ca 150, Fe 5, Mn 0.5, Cu 0.03, Zn 0.05, B 0.5 and Mo 0.02. Results showed that there were no significant difference between nutrition methods in respect to earliness and plant growth. It was concluded that organic manure could be used as a complete feeding source for iceberg lettuce production in perlite and tuff based media. Organic nutrition was evaluated as an environmentally sound method since it reduced element contents in drained out solution. Differences between substrates were not statistically significant in respect to plant growth. It was determined that using the substrate containing clinoptilolite at higher ratio resulted in lower concentrations of K and higher concentrations of Na in drained out solution.ISH