Yield of beet cultivars under fertigation management and salinity control in a protected environment

Abstract

In a protected environment, applying excess fertilizer and using water with soluble salts cause soil salinization due to the absence of lixiviation by precipitation. Among commercial vegetables, beets (Beta vulgaris L.) have good tolerance to soil salinity, being a good option for growth under these conditions. An experimental study was carried out in the municipality of Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil. The treatment consisted of a combination of the following factors: initial soil salinity (1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 dS m -1 ), fertigation management (traditional vs. control of ion concentration of the soil solution) and two beet cultivars ('Early Wonder' and 'Itapuã') in a 5 × 2 × 2 factorial design. A randomized block design with four replicates was adopted, totaling 80 experimental plots. The total fresh weight of aerial part and root, total dry weight of aerial part and root, and water use efficiency (WUE) were assessed. Significant differences were found between fertigation management practices and salinity levels proposed. 'Itapuã' showed better yield and WUE for electrical conductivity (EC) below 6 dS m -1 . Under traditional fertigation, root yield response fits a linear model with a decrease of 11.365 g ('Early Wonder') and 11.025 g ('Itapuã') for each unit increase in EC. Under controlled fertigation, the best-fit model was quadratic, with maximum estimates of 248.83 g for 'Early Wonder' and 258.52 g for 'Itapuã'. Controlling EC of the soil solution had a positive effect, while salinity levels above 6 dS m -1 must be avoided.

Produção de mudas de abobrinha sob estresse salino em diferentes ambientes e substratos

“…Reduction in dry mass accumulation was also found by some authors working with crops of the same botanical family of zucchini subjected to salinity of irrigation water, such as cucumber (Albuquerque et al, 2016) and in other crops, such as sugar beet (Silva et al, 2016) and cotton (Lima et al, 2017).…”

“…The use of these resources for irrigation promotes a reduction in crop productivity by decreasing the water potential in the soil and exerts negative effects by specific ions (Silva et al, 2016). In relation to seedling production, Santos et al (2023) Production of zucchini seedlings un... this effect is more pronounced, because at this stage the seedlings are more susceptible to the effects of salts (Silva Junior et al, 2020).…”

Raising Beet Tolerance to Salinity through Bioaugmentation with Halotolerant Endophytes

“…We did not observe adverse effects of salt stress in the case of chlorophyll content, number of leaves, length of roots, or dry weight, which was surprising due to the widely known unfavorable effect of salinity on plant growth [40][41][42][43][44]. However, B. vulgaris exhibits high innate tolerance to salinity, which probably results from genetic similarity to its halophytic ancestor, the sea beet [45,46]. The most detrimental impact of salinity was observed in the case of germination percentage and index.…”

Yield parameters, antioxidant activity, polyphenol and total soluble solids content of beetroot cultivars with different flesh colours

“…Obtained results revealed and confirmed the statistically significant effect of cultivar on the yield of beetroot. Except for cultivar, beetroot yield can be affected by other factors, for example, different growing system (Szopińska and Gawęda, 2013), irrigation and soil salinity (da Silva et al, 2016), fertilisation strategy (Agic et al, 2016), or changing climate conditions during vegetation period (Nizioł-Łukaszewska and Gawęda, 2014).…”