IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF COMPOST AMENDED PEAT POTS FOR VEGETABLE PLANTLETS IN ORGANIC FARMING

Seedlings of lettuce, fennel and kohlrabi were grown in four different compost amended peat pot media and compared to a standard full peat medium.
Standard mineral NPK fertilization was applied to the standard medium, while the compost amended media were amended with 4 kg/m³ hornmeal with or without 3 1/m³ Bioamino organic, liquid fertilizer (9% total nitrogen content). Up to transplanting, plant growth was positively related to the initial mineral nitrogen content (Nmin) of the media so that the standard medium yielded the tallest plantlets.
The head weight at harvest of marketable lettuce was not influenced by the initial plantlet media.
However, fennel and kohlrabi showed differences in marketable vegetable yield: the hornmeal amended medium led to reduced yields in comparison to the standard medium or the hornmeal-bioamino amended media.
During plantlet growth, the irrigation frequency was 1.5 times higher for all compost amended media than for the full peat medium.

Workshop on Ecological Aspects of Vegetable Fertilization in Integrated Crop Production in the Field

M. Leiser

Compost, substitute, peat, plantlets

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1993.339.20