Efecto de interacción del nitrógeno y potasio y su influencia sobre parámetros de crecimiento en el cultivo de banano

Abstract

The Banana is the most important crop in the economy of Ecuador being agricultural items at national level, the capital income generated contributes to the circulation of foreign exchange in the country. The absence of information created in relation to the nutritional demands of the crop in our field of professional action limits us to using information from other banana producing countries, however, we cannot assume that the results will be similar when the soil-climatic conditions are completely different. The main objective was to analyze the responses of the crop to the interaction of nitrogen and potassium fertilization in different doses on variables of vegetative growth of the Williams cultivar, banana. The experience was carried out in the experimental farm Santa Inés, which is located within the premises of a technical University of Machala, the same that belongs to the parish El Cambio, canton Machala, province of El Oro. The experimental design was a 4 x 4 factorial arrangement in a completely random block design (DBCA) with four repetitions. Each factor has 4 levels, being the factor 1 Nitrogen (N) and its levels N1 (0 kg of N), N2 (200 kg of N), N3 (400 kg of N) and N4 (600 kg of N). The factor 2 Potassium (K) and its levels K1 (0 kg of K), N2 (350 kg of K), K3 (700 kg of K) and K4 (1050 kg of k), the interaction of these two factors and their levels resulted in 16 treatments: T1 (N1K1), T2 (N1K2), T3 (N1K3), T4 (N1K4), T5 (N2K1), T6 (N2K2), T7 (N2K3), T8 (N2K4), T9 (N3K1), T10 (N3K2), T11 (N3K3), T12 (N3K4), T13 (N4K1), T14 (N4K2), T15 (N4K4), T15 (N3K4), T13 (N4K1), T14 (N4K2), T15 (N3K4), T15 (N3K4). The experimental area is 0.86 Ha, the plants were distributed in a spacing of 1.7m between plants and 2.2m between rows. On the sowing day (dds), 6 plants were randomly selected from the 16 plants of each experimental unit, which were followed until the end of the vegetative stage (173) or inflorescence emission. The experimental plot was carried out considering the cultural practices of the technical management of the crop from its sowing to its productive stage, among these practices are: the design of the irrigation system, control of weeds, pests and diseases. The variables evaluated in this experiment were: 1) Plant Height (PA), 2) Perimeter of Pseudotallo (PP), 3) Foliar Emission (FE) and Foliar Area (FA). At the end of the experiment, the collected data were subjected to a variance analysis using an F test to analyze the effects of the evaluated treatments. At the end of the evaluation period (end of the reproductive stage) treatments with significant effects were found, then the relationship between the doses of N and K applied in the case study was analyzed through polynomial regression equations. The evaluation of the relationship between the different doses of N and K and the growth variables (AP), (PP), (EF) and (AF) was carried out by means of a correlation analysis. The data were tabulated and analyzed using AGROESTAT software. As a conclusion we can say that in the first months of life of the banana the element N is fundamental since there were significant differences between its 4 levels statistically speaking, however in the case of K we did not find the same behavior, on the contrary the cases of potassium did not present any difference what indicates that to apply K in the stage of growth is irrelevant when dealing with variables of growth but not of the physiology of the plant.