Annals of the Sri Lanka Department of Agriculture. 2008.10:293-301.
EFFECT OF CATTLE MANURE AND FRUIT WASTE COMPOST ON THE PERFORMANCE OF ORGANIC PASSION FRUIT (Passiflora edulis f.flavicarpa) CULTIVATION J.D. WEERASOORIYA, V.K. PEIRIS and S.M.G. DAVID Fruit Crops Research and Development Centre, Kananwila, Horana.
ABSTRACT There is limited information available in Sri Lanka on the performance of fruits cultivated under organic farming with respect to different types of organic fertilizers used, their quantities and methods of application. An experiment was conducted for four years, commencing in 2001, on a red yellow podzolic soil at Horana in the low country wet zone, to study the effect of different methods of Cattle Manure (CM) and Fruit Waste Compost (FWC) application in growing passion fruit (yellow variety ) under organic farming system. Decomposed CM or FWC were applied separately, as a mixture at 1:1 ratio and alternatively at the rate of 30, 20, 20 and 20 t/ha/year, with basal dressing applied at 10 t/ha. Top dressing at 20 t/ha/year was split applied twice or thrice a year at 1:1 or 2:1:1 ratio respectively. Recommended NPK chemical fertilizer treatment was included for comparison purposes. All organic fertilizer treatments gave comparable or significantly higher yields over recommended NPK treatment, except in the first year. Yields obtained from the treatments with two and three applications of CM a year and two applications of FWC a year application were inferior to the recommended NPK treatment in the first year. However, FWC at (30, 20, 20, 20 t/ha/year) split applied three times a year was the best treatment, with comparable yield to recommended NPK treatment in the first two years and with significantly higher yield over recommended NPK treatment in the last two years. Thus it is evident that organic passion fruit production can be efficiently carried out with CM and FWC. KEYWORDS: Fruit waste compost, Organic farming, Passion fruit.
INTRODUCTION Organic agriculture is a production system, which favours maximum use of organic material such as crop residues, animal excreta, farm organic waste, bio-pesticides etc. and discourages the use of synthetically produced agricultural inputs for maintaining soil productivity, fertility and pest management (Dahama, 2001). The produce from organic farming is free from toxic chemical residues and the keeping quality is superior to that of chemically grown crops. In addition, environmental pollution due to the over use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides does not occur. Soil erosion is reduced (Smith, 2002; Pathak et al., 2003). Organic farming which is widely practiced in most of the developed countries is presently becoming popular in Sri Lanka. The Department of Agriculture (DOA) promotes the use of organic fertilizer in crop cultivation due to the increasing cost of chemical fertilizer and other
38 WEERASOORIYA et al.
benefits. On the other hand, there is a strong export market potential for organic passion fruit and pineapple etc. However, limited information is available in Sri Lanka on the performance of fruits under organic farming. Information on the type of organic fertilizer, their quantity of application, method and time of application are important. Large scale organic farming needs large amounts of organic fertilizer. Compost produced from fruit waste may be a solution for this as fruit waste is generated in large quantities from fruit canning factories (Weerasooriya, 2007). This study which was initiated in October 2001 was carried out to test the effect of the organic fertilizers on the performance of organic passion fruit production. The effect of continuous organic fertilizer application on soil quality was also examined. MATERIALS AND METHODS A long term field experiment was conducted in red yellow podzolic soil at Fruit Crops Research and Development Centre (FCRDC), Horana commencing in October, 2001, and continued for four consecutive years. Yellow passion fruit (Passiflora edulis f.flavicarpa) seedling with 6-10 mature leaves were planted at 4.5 m apart along the rows, with the distance of 2 m. Gliricidia poles of 2.4 m height were planted at a distance between 4.5 m for the trellises with gauge 14 galvanized wires to train the vines. There were 8 treatments with different types and combinations of organic fertilizer along with the Department recommended chemical fertilizer, and the frequency as given in Table 1. Each treatment was replicated four times in RCBD. The number of plants per treatment was three. The chemical fertilizer recommended by the Department of Agriculture was included as a treatment for the purpose of yield comparison. No agrochemicals were used for any of the treatments. However, hand weeding done to control weeds. Decomposed cattle manure or fruit waste compost (Weerasooriya, 2007) were applied separately and as a mixture at 1:1 ratio and alternatively at 30, 20, 20 and 20 t/ha/year from first to fourth year respectively with basal dressing at 10 t/ha and top dressing at 20 t/ha/year. Top dressing was split applied twice or thrice a year at 1:1 or 2:1:1 ratio respectively (Table 1).
GROWING PASSION FRUIT WITH ORGANIC FERTILIZERS 39 Table 1. Different types of organic fertilizer and DOA recommended chemical fertilizer in different treatment combinations applied in 4 years. Treatment
Source
Rate of organic fertilizer application (t/ha/year) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th year year year year
T1 T2
DR CM
30
20
20
20
Split application rate Basa Top l t/ha dressing t/ha/year 10 10 10,10
T3 T4
FWC CM
30 30
20 20
20 20
20 20
10 10
10,10 10,5,5
T5 T6
FWC CM:FWC (1:1) CM/FWC Alternative Application DR+FWC
30 30
20 20
20 20
20 20
10 10
10,5,5 10,10
30
20
20
20
10
10,10
Every 6 months -DoEvery 4 months -DoEvery 6 months -Do-
30
20
20
20
10
10,10
-Do-
T7 T8
Frquency of top dressing
DR = Department of Agriculture recommended fertilizer CM = Decomposed Cattle Manure FWC = Fruit waste compost
Planting holes (60 cm x 60 cm x 60 cm) were filled with the basal dressing of 9 kg (10 t/ha) of each of this organic fertilizer mixed with top soil two weeks before planting. The basal dressing of chemical fertilizer was also applied 3 days before planting in the relevant planting holes. The top dressing of organic/chemical fertilizer was applied 30cm away from the base of stem around the vine and covered with soil mulch. Vines were trained and pruned according to the recommended practice of the Department of Agriculture. Ripened fruits were harvested once in two days and fruit yields were recorded each year. At the end of fruit harvesting each year, total pruning of partial vines was carried out leaving about 3 nodes from both the lateral vines. Other data recorded were stem diameter and number of fruits per vine. Composite soil samples (0-15 cm) were collected from the experimental field before commencing the experiment. In addition soil samples (0-15 cm) were collected from each plot at the end of the 4th year. These samples were analysed for pH (1:1- soil: water), electrical conductivity, Olsen’s available P (0.5M NaHCO3, pH 8.5), available K (1N CH3COONH4 at pH 7) and organic matter contents according the standard methods (Recel et al., 1988). Random samples of cattle manure and fruit waste compost used for the experiment were also analysed.
40 WEERASOORIYA et al.
Total soluble solid (0Brix) content of fruits was measured by a hand held refractometer for the years 2003 to 2005. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION No severe pest attack or disease was observed during the period of the experiment. Table 2 gives the stem diameter of vine above 60 cm of the base of the stem taken after 10, 18 and 24 months of planting. Stem diameter of vines in department recommendation was comparable to organic fertilizer treatments except T7 at 10 months after planting, T4 at 18 months after planting and T2,T3 and T4 at 24 months after planting. Table 2. The stem diameter of the passion fruit vines above 60 cm of the base of the stem taken at 10, 18 and 24 months of planting. Treatment Treatment The stem diameter of the passion fruit vines/ cm No. 10 MAP 18 MAP 24 MAP T1 DR 3.8 a 9.3 abc 13.0 ab T2 CM twice/year 3.9 a 8.2 cd 11.3 d T3 FWC twice/year 3.6 a 8.7 bcd 11.4 cd T4 CM thrice/ year 3.9 a 8.0 d 11.0 d T5 FWC thrice/year 3.7 a 9.1 bcd 12.4 b T6 CM:FWC=1:1 twice/year 3.8 a 9.0 bcd 12.2 bc T7 CM/FWC twice/year 2.5 b 9.5 ab 13.5 a T8 DR+FWC twice/year 3.9 a 10.3 a 13.4 a Means followed by the same letter in each column are not significantly different at P= 0.05. MAP= Months After Planting
Data on the number of fruits per vine is given in Table 3. All the organic fertilizer treatments were comparable or superior to the Department recommendation T1 in all four crop cycles except with T3 and T4 which were inferior to the Department recommendation in the first year. Table 3. Number of fruits per vine of passion fruit in year 2002-2005. Treatment Treatment Number of fruits/vine No. 2002 2003 2004 2005 T1 DR 66 ab 92 a 125 abc 62 bc T2 CM twice/year 49 bc 73 a 109 c 66 bc T3 FWC twice/year 43 c 72 a 138 ab 77 ab T4 CM thrice/ year 48 c 61 a 113 bc 76 ab T5 FWC thrice/year 52 abc 90 a 142 a 81 ab T6 CM:FWC=1:1 twice/year 57 abc 75 a 103 c 55 c T7 CM/FWC twice/year 58 abc 92 a 143 a 88 a T8 DR+FWC twice/year 69 a 92 a 148 a 86 a Means followed by the same letter in each column are not significantly different at P= 0.05.
GROWING PASSION FRUIT WITH ORGANIC FERTILIZERS 41
Fruit harvesting was done for each year for several months from June to October/November. Table 4 indicates yield obtained in the 4 consecutive years. Table 4. Fruit yield of passion fruit in different years. Treatment Treatment Fruit yield t/ha No. 2002 2003 2004 2005 T1 DR 6.3 ab 8.1 a 12.0 bc 5.5 bc T2 CM twice/year 4.6 c 8.8 a 13.5 ab 6.5 abc T3 FWC twice/year 4.0 c 8.7 a 14.5 a 7.2 ab T4 CM thrice/ year 4.8 c 6.8 a 10.8 c 6.7 abc T5 FWC thrice/year 5.2 b 8.8 a 15.2 a 8.4 a T6 CM:FWC=1:1 twice/year 5.2 b 9.7 a 10.8 c 5.3 c T7 CM/FWC twice/year 5.3 b 8.3 a 14.0 ab 7.4 ab T8 DR+FWC twice/year 7.1 a 9.4 a 14.8 a 6.9 abc Means followed by the same letter in each column are not significantly different at P= 0.05.
Department recommended chemical fertilizer with fruit waste compost in T8 showed a yield increase of 0.8 t/ha, 1.3 t/ha, 2.8 t/ha and 1.4 t/ha in the 4 consecutive years respectively over yield obtained only with chemical fertilizer in T1. Moreover, T8 was significantly superior to T1 in the third year. This clearly indicates the benefits of application of organic fertilizer together with chemical fertilizer. Yield obtained in the first year for the treatments, fruit waste compost thrice a year application, cattle manure and fruit waste compost application as a mixture of 1:1 ratio and their alternative application gave statistically comparable results with Department of Agriculture recommended chemical fertilizer. However, cattle manure twice or thrice a year application and fruit waste compost twice a year application gave significantly poor yield than that of Department of Agriculture recommendation. All the treatments from T1 to T8 had no significant effect on yield data in the second year. Yield of fruit waste compost twice or thrice a year application as well as that of Department of Agriculture chemical fertilizer recommendation with fruit waste compost were significantly superior to that of the Department recommendation in the 3 rd year. All the other treatments were comparable to the Department recommendation in the 3 rd year. Therefore, fruit waste compost seems to be a good source of organic fertilizer in organic farming practices in perennial crops. In the 4th consecutive year, there was a drastic reduction in yield. This may be due to weakening of vines after several years of
42 WEERASOORIYA et al.
production. Therefore, this experiment was not continued after the 4 th year. The treatment T5 was significantly superior to T1, the Department of agriculture recommendation in the final year. Other treatments were comparable to the Department of Agriculture recommendation in the 4 th year too. Throughout the 4 crop cycles fruit waste compost had performed better than cattle manure with higher yield than that obtained with cattle manure. Moreover, fruit waste compost had yielded significantly higher yields over those of the Department recommended chemical fertilizer. Cattle manure had not performed well in the 1 st year. But it gave comparable yield to that of Department recommendation in the following years. Cattle manure and fruit waste compost as a mixture of 1:1 ratio or alternative application gave comparable yield to that of Department recommendation through out the 4 crop cycles. Table 5 indicates the chemical properties of cattle manure and fruit waste compost used in these experiments. N, P and K content of fruit waste compost were higher than in cattle manure. This must be due to the raw materials used in fruit waste compost preparation (Weerasooriya, 2007). Table 5. Chemical characteristics of cattle manure and fruit waste compost. Chemical property pH (1:1) Electrical conductivity (ds/m) Organic C% Total N% Total P2O5% Total K2O%
Fruit waste compost 8.4 0.055 13.8 1.1 0.7 2.6
Cattle manure 6.6 8.0 0.8 0.5 0.8
Table 6 indicates the original soil characteristics of the experimental site before commencing the experiment. Table 6.
The initial properties of the experimental site before commencing the experiment. Chemical property pH (1:1) Olsen’s P (ppm) Electrical conductivity (ds/m) Available K (ppm) Organic matter%
4.2 24.8 0.031 43.0 1.6
Table 7 indicates the soil characteristics of the experimental plots at the end of fourth year.
GROWING PASSION FRUIT WITH ORGANIC FERTILIZERS 43 Table 7. The soil characteristics of the experimental plots at the end of fourth year. Treatment No.
Treatment
pH (1:1)
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6
DR CM twice/year FWC twice/ year CM thrice/ year FWC thrice/year CM: FWC twice/year CM/ FWC twice/year DR+ FWC twice/year
T7 T8
Olsen’s P (ppm)
Available K (ppm)
Organic matter %
6.3 6.1 6.5 6.2 6.3 6.6
EC (1:5) (ds/m) 0.061 0.058 0.091 0.078 0.073 0.077
33.1 28.0 37.0 35.8 33.8 27.0
195 103 375 198 264 153
1.93 2.17 2.3 2.1 2.5 2.4
6.6
0.069
23.0
234
2.4
6.3
0.070
38.0
268
1.9
Original soil characteristic of the experimental site in Table 6 was compared with soil characteristics of the experimental site at the end of the experiment in Table 7. There was an increasing trend in pH with organic fertilizer application with all the treatments. The pH increase can be attributed to the high pH of fruit waste compost and cattle manure (Table 5), than that of original soil (Table 6). EC also increased due to cattle manure and fruit waste compost application. Available P level also showed an increase for all the treatments except with T7. Similar observation has been reported by Lattif et al. 2003. Unlike other soil properties available K had increased significantly higher amounts especially in plots treated with fruit waste compost. This may be due to high content of available K in fruit waste compost (Table 5).There was a build up of organic matter content with all the treatments but organic matter content was higher in organic fertilizer treated plots than the chemical fertilizer treated plots. Table 8 indicates the total soluble solid content of fruits, from 2003 to 2005. The total soluble solid content of fruits of all the treatments was comparable and these values were very high. Table 8. Total soluble solid/ 0Brix content of fruits in the following three years, from 2003 to 2005. Treatment DR CM t/ha twice/year FWC t/ha twice/year CM t/ha thrice/year FWC t/ha thrice/year CM:FWC: 1:1t/ha twice/year CM/FWC t/ha twice/year DR + FWC t/ha twice/year
2003 16.1 a 18.3 a 17.8a 18.3 a 16.5 a 19.0 a 18.6 a 19.8 a
2004 16.6 ab 16.0 b 16.6 ab 16.6 ab 16.8 ab 16.7 ab 16.8 ab 16.8 ab
2005 18.1a 17.8 a 17.9 a 17.8 a 18.9 a 17.8 a 18.7 a 18.4 a
44 WEERASOORIYA et al. Means followed by the same letter in each column are not significantly different at P= 0.05.
GROWING PASSION FRUIT WITH ORGANIC FERTILIZERS 45
CONCLUSIONS Passion fruit yields obtained with fruit waste compost or cattle manure gave comparable or significantly higher yields over the Department recommended fertilizer except in the first year. Application of fruit waste compost and cattle manure as a mixture or their alternative application also gave comparable yields to the Department recommendation. Fruit waste compost split applied three times a year was the best treatment which achieved the highest yield when considering the all four crop cycles. Fruit waste compost split applied twice a year also performed well in the last three consecutive years. There was not much of a difference in fruit quality interpreted by total soluble solid levels between organic or chemical fertilizer treatments. Continuous application of organic fertilizers showed accumulation of nutrients such as P. Similarly, continuous application of NPK chemical fertilizers together with organic fertilizers showed accumulation of P. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the changes in soil nutrient levels to prevent any nutrient imbalance which may be harmful to crops. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to thank Dr. M.A. Lattif and Staff, the Horticulture Crops Research and Development Institute, Gannoruwa for chemical analysis of samples. In addition, grateful acknowledgement goes to Dr. M. Dassanayake, Head, Virus Detecting Centre, Homagama for providing all the support to make this project successful during the initial stages of the project. Our sincere thanks go to Miss. K.D.A. Perera, Additional Director, the Fruit Crops Research and Development Centre, Horana for all the encouragement, guidance and support given to make this project a success. REFERENCES Black, C.A. 1965. Methods of Soil analysis. American Society of Agronomy. Inc., Madison, U.S.A. 866-1400 p. Dahama, A.K. 2001. Organic farming for sustainable agriculture, 2 nd edition. AgroBios, India. 11 p. Jackson, M.L. 1958. Soil chemical analysis. Constable and Company Limited, London. 498 p. Lathiff, M.A., S. Maraikar. 2003. Studies on the performance of some vegetable crops in organic farming systems. Annals of the Sri Lanka Department of Agriculture 5: 141-148. Pathak, R.K., R.A. Ram. 2003. Successful conversion of conventional to organic/biodynamic: a case study. In Proceedings of the Production and Exports of Organic Fruit
46 WEERASOORIYA et al. and Vegetables in ASIA at Bangkok, Thailand. A seminar organized by FAO, IFOAM and the Earth Net Foundation. 61-70 p. Recel, M.R., Z.M. Labre. 1988. Methods of soil, plant, water and fertilizer analysis for research. Soil and Water Resources Research Division, Bureau of soil and water management, Department of Agriculture, Manila. 1:43-139. Smith, R.T. 2002. Organic farming sustaining earth and people. Centre for organic agriculture development in association with environmental economics and Global Affairs Division of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. 153 p. Weerasooriya, J.D. 2007. A new method for making compost from fruit waste. Annals of the Sri Lanka Department of Agriculture 9: 273-276.