Agroekoloģisko faktoru ietekme uz reti audzētu dārzeņu ražu un kvalitāti = Influence of agroecological factors on the yield and quality of rarely-grown vegetables

Abstract

Zeipiņa S. (2021) Influence of agroecological factors on the yield and quality of rarely-grown vegetables. The Doctoral Thesis. Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies. Jelgava, LLU 130 p. The research was carried out from 2013 to 2019 in the Institute of Horticulture (LatHort). The aim: to evaluate the influence of agroecological factors on the rarely-grown vegetables yield and quality on three morphological different species: stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.), globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus L. var. scolymus) and vegetable soybean (Glycine max L.). The tasks of the research: • to evaluate the growth and development of stinging nettle, globe artichoke and vegetable soybean under various agrotechnical factors and meteorological conditions; • to evaluate the influence of various agrotechnical factors and meteorological conditions on the yield of selected vegetables; • to determine and evaluate the nutritional value changes under various agrotechnical factors and meteorological conditions. Work novelty: for the first time in Latvia the investigations on the influence of agroecogical factors on stinging nettle, globe artichoke and vegetable soybean are performed. All these vegetables have high potential for the healthy human diet. Work hypothesis: ensuring suitable agrotechnical factors and reducing effect of meteorological conditions can increase studied vegetables yield and the content of biologically active compounds. Scientific actuality of work: obtained results are important and useful for commercial vegetable producers, the research gives insight in the yield formation and crop quality changes under various agrotechnical factors and meteorological conditions. The structure of the Thesis: introduction, literature review, materials and methods of the research, results and discussion, conclusions, references and appendix. Introduction. Topicality of the work is justiefied, research goal and tasks are formulated, research novelty and hypothesis are estimated. The list of author`s scientific publications on the topic of Thesis is provided. A literature review is arranged into 10 sub-chapters, where the main biological active compounds in investigated vegetables are described, as well as influence of agroecological factors on their content, the growth, development, and yield formating of vegetables is studied. Also, the biology, economic importance, nutritional value, growing conditions, and influence of agroecological factor on the growth, development, yield and content of biologicaly active compounds is described for selected vegetables. Materials and methods of the research are arranged into 5 sub-chapters, wehere the methodology of the research, meteorological conditions, measurements, methods of biochemical analyses and statistics are described. Results and discussion are arranged into 8 sub-chapters, where yield and changes of biologically active compounds are analysed for stinging nettle, globe artichoke and vegetable soybean under influence of various agroecological factors. Conclusions give answers on the tasks highlighted for promotion thesis. References consist on bibliographic description of the sources of information used. Appendix describe research materials and results. Work contains of 68 figures, 10 tables, 4 annexes and 268 bibliography items.