Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ripening season, pre-harvest and post-harvest conditions, shelf-life and processing (Capocasa
et al., 2008).
Furthermore, only limited knowledge is available regarding the possibility of improving
strawberry nutritional traits by applying different types and levels of fertilizers. Anttonen et
al. (2006) pointed out the lowest fertilization level increased the contents of flavonols and
ellagic acid from 19 to 57%, whereas up to 4-fold differences were found in the flavonol
content between the tested cultivars. Therefore, the intention here is to narrow the information
to results that suggest a direct connection between nutrient uptake and
fruit
quality
. In order
to get a complete understanding of this subject, a future review should embrace a broader
access to information including the effect on nutritional fruit quality of both biofertilizers and
chemical fertilizers.
The research reported in this chapter was designed to evaluate and discuss the effect of
the biofertilizer (various bacteria which act as PGPR) and chemical fertilizer (Polyfeed NPK
Water Soluble Fertilizer) on the microbiological soil properties and the desirable properties in
terms of yield and fruit quality of the three strawberry cultivars under greenhouse conditions.
In addition to this, the aim of this comparative study was to establish whether the application
of biofertilizers can be an appropriate method in commercial strawberry production, replacing
the utilization of chemical fertilizers.
M
ETHODS
Plant Material and Experimental Design
The study was conducted on strawberry plants in the greenhouse at the Fruit Research
Institute Čačak (43
o
53' N latitude, 20
o
20' E longitude, 225 m altitude), during a 2-year
period (2012-2013). The experimental design was a split-plot arrangement based on a
randomized complete block design with three replications. Frigo plants were established at
the beginning of March 2012 using 3 dm
3
plastic pots filled with Klasmann substrate (TS1,
0.7 g l
-1
nutrient content). It is a mixture of fine white sphagnum peat (0-10 mm) and perlite
(25%). The substrate is slightly acidic (pH=6), enriched with water-soluble nutrients,
microelements and wetting agents. The treatments contained two fertilizer types i.e., the
biofertilizer (liquid inoculum combined of
Azotobacter
,
Derxia
and
Bacillus
genera), and the
chemical fertilizer (Polyfeed NPK Water Soluble Fertilizer). The application was performed
on total 60 plants of each investigated cultivar ('Clery', 'Joly' and 'Dely') in three replications
per 20 plants. The tested cultivars had been released by the CIV breeding program (Consorzio
Italiano Vivaisti, Ferrara).
The biofertilizer formulation is a combination of nitrogen-fixing and phospho-
mineralizing
bacteria (
Azotobacter chroococcum, Azotobacter vinelandi, Bacillus
megatherium, Bacillus lichenformis and Bacillus subtilis
). Polyfeed NPK is a water-soluble
chemical fertilizer (production line of ‗Haifa Chemicals Ltd'- Israel). The bifertilizer was
applied during plant establishment by dipping the roots in a liquid inoculum of bacteria for
30 minutes.
Bacteria titer in the inoculum ranged within 20-40 x 10
6
CFU cm
-3
. The plants were
watered every 7 days with 100 cm
3
inoculum per growing pot
during the vegetative period
.
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