Published in Scientific Papers. Series A. Agronomy, Vol. LXI, Issue 1
Written by Lydia Dorothea EISENBACH, Antigolena FOLINA, Charikleia ZISI, Ioannis ROUSSIS, Ioanna TABAXI, Panayiota PAPASTYLIANOU, I. KAKABOUKI, Aspasia EFTHIMIADOU, Dimitrios J. BILALIS
A field experiment was conducted on sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) at the Agricultural University of Athens during the growing summer season 2017 to evaluate the effects of biocyclic humus soil on plant growth, yield as well as chemical constituents and quality parameters. The experiment was laid out in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications of three treatments (untreated, inorganic fertilizer and biocyclic humus soil). A two-leaf cutting was placed into the treated soil to make a sweet potato plant. The highest sweet potato yield was obtained by using biocyclic humus soil with average total yield (35.6 t/ha) and average marketable yield (24.3 t/ha). There were no statistically significant differences between the treatments for the compression (Max Load 0.622-0.780 kN) and the penetration (Max Load 0.0439-0.0447 kN) tests on sweet potato tubers. Furthermore, measurements were implemented for the total nitrogen content of tubers with no statistical significant differences between treatments. The big difference in yield between sweet potato grown in humus soil and sweet potato treated conventionally probably is related to the fact that the structure of soil which is a clay loam soil was too compact for the cultivation of sweet potato, a disadvantage which has been compensated by using humus soil as substrate while substituting soil.
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