FERTIGATION AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE NITROGEN USE EFFICIENCY AND YIELD

A greenhouse experiment was carried out at Almuzahemiah Research Station, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to evaluate the effect of fertigation on cucumber yield.
There were five treatments, N₀ = control, soil N_s = 120 mg N L^-1 and three treatments labeled N¹⁵ (N₁ = 60, N₂ = 120 and N₃ = 180 mg N15 L^-1) to study their effect on cucumber (cultivar Figaro F-1) yield during 1996. The highest yield was 33.74 t ha^-1 from N₃ and the lowest 7.73 t ha^-1 from the control treatment.
Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) varied between 72.7-129.53 kg kg^-1 N in the different N treatments.
The mean N¹⁵ a.e. ranged from 0.010-0844% (leaves), 0.058-0.855% (shoots), 0.044-0.747% (roots) and 0.07-0.823% (fruits). In conclusion, nitrogen application through fertigation was more effective than the conventional method (soil application) for improving the greenhouse crop yields.

International Symposium on Greenhouses, Environmental Controls and In-house Mechanization for Crop Production in the Tropics and Sub-Tropics

M.I. Al-Wabel, A.A. Al-Jaloud, G. Hussain, S. Karimula

cucumber cultivar yield, nitrogen use efficiency, water use efficiency, chemigation, salinity

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2006.710.31