Simone Cândido Ensinas

Nutritional Status of Cotton Plant Assessed by Compositional Nutrient Diagnosis (CND)

The use of compositional nutrient diagnosis (CND) to assess the nutritional status of cotton crop is quite important to improve knowledge on plant nutritional requirement and assist the fertilizer recommendation. The aim of this chapter is to introduce the possibility of using CND for cotton crop. This method has scarcely been used to assess the nutritional status of cotton plant although a few results have indicated that it can be promising. In fact, CND methodology seems to be better in the nutritional diagnosis than traditional methods such as sufficient range (SR) and critical value approach (CVA). Its efficiency has increased with the possibility of applying multivariate analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), canonical correlation, and so on. The application of PCA possibility to note some interactions among the nutrients is important for understanding the dynamics of nutrients in plants.

Adubação fosfatada no desenvolvimento de Hemerocallis fulva L.

In clayey Oxisol from the Brazilian Cerrado, where there is high P fixation, the phosphorus fertilization is necessary to increase the growth and flowering of ornamental plants. Thus, the objective of this study was to analyze the development of Hemerocallis as affected by phosphorus application in clayey Oxisol (Typic Haplustox). The experiment was conducted at the Gardening area of University Federal of Grande Dourados (UFGD) in Dourados-MS, Brazil. The experimental design was a randomized block with four replications. The treatments consisted of four P2O5 rates (0, 250, 500, 1000 kg ha-1) using simple superphosphate as source. The experimental unit was composed of one Hemerocallis fulva ‘Flore Pleno’ plant, grown in a plastic pot (5 liters). Phosphorus fertilization increased linearly the concentration of phosphorus in the soil; the plant had maximum absorption (5.26 g kg-1) with the calculated dose of 727 kg ha-1 P2O5. H. fulva has a root system that develops best under high availability of P, however, for aerial part, the maximum of shoots fresh mass (451.1 g) was obtained with 427 kg ha-1 of P2O5. Number of flower buds, flower diameter and height flower stalks were higher in the presence of phosphorus.