Filter cake enriched with rockdust on the morphometry of cherry tomato and malagueta pepper seedlings via multivariate modeling

Abstract

Brazil is one of the largest vegetable producers, which contributes to the creation of jobs for small and medium-sized producers, with emphasis on family farming. The objective of this work was to evaluate the cherry tomato and chili pepper seedlings development adopting the agroindustrial by-product filter cake enriched with rock dust. Two experiments were conducted, one with cherry tomatoes and the other with chili pepper in a greenhouse located at the State University of Goiás, Brazil. For each experiment, a randomized block design with six treatments and six replications was used, totaling 36 experimental plots. Each experimental plot comprised 8 tubes containing one plant in each, totaling 288 tubes and plants in each experiment. The treatments were formed by combining the agroindustrial by-product filter cake and rock dust. The total length of the seedling (TL), aboveground height (Ah.), stem diameter (SD), number of leaves (NL), root length (RL), fresh root mass (FRM), dry root mass (DRM) and dry aboveground mass (DAM) have been evaluated. The pepper and cherry tomato crops morphometric data was submitted to descriptive statistical analysis and principal component analysis (PCA). Only the 80% FC + 20% RD treatment, which did not have a high coefficient of variation (CV) for the plant morphometric variables, characterizing the most efficient treatment for the seedlings morphometric development. It was verified that higher proportions of filter cake (treatment at 100% and 90% of the cake application) resulted in greater variability of the growth and development of pepper seedlings. It was also found that there is a high correlation between RL and TL, with correlation coefficients close to 1. Such behaviour occurred as a result of the co-dependency of these crop systems. The 80% FC + 20% RD treatment showed the best results for the morphometric development of chili pepper and cherry tomato seedlings, which should be recommended for future experiments, as well as to be adopted by small producers.