Biochar: aplicaciones y efectos en combinación con fertilizantes minerales en 3 variedades de café en la provincia de El Oro

Abstract

Coffee growing is traditional in Ecuador, it can be produced in two types, Arabica coffee and Robusta coffee, since our country has privileged agroecological aptitudes for the development of both species. The cultivation of coffee is very important, it can be cultivated in a wide diversity of soils, being more important to have it in an agroforestry system so that resources are conserved, carbon is captured and the water balance is protected. Coffee is grown in 23 provinces of Ecuador, it is considered that Coffea arabica arrived in our country in 1784 and that Coffea canephora was introduced in 1951, starting its production at the Pichilingue Experimental Station and then distributed to the rest of the country. At present, coffee cultivation has decreased because it is no longer profitable, pests attacked and decimated the crops, so it is not beneficial and its maintenance became an enormous cost, coffee growers changed crops replacing it with grasslands, cocoa farms, plantations forest and fruit trees, according to the II Agricultural Census, coffee went from being cultivated in about 346,971 hectares to being cultivated in just 60,000 hectares, according to data released by ANECAFÉ in 2019. In this experimental work, the application of biochar and complete fertilizer will be carried out to evaluate three commercial varieties of coffee that are produced in the province of El Oro, which are: Sarchimor, Conilón and Lojana. Biochar has become a relevant research material due to its varied application and great benefits granted to crops such as stimulating microbial symbiosis and making the application of fertilizers more efficient, improving the production and yield of crops and increasing biomass, It favors the production of phytoalexins so that the plant defends itself against pathogenic organisms, improving its resistance. Coffee tree nutrition demands 16 or more elements that are essential for its metabolism and that vary according to the needs of the species, phenological stage or depends on the properties of the soil where it will be planted. The experimental design was randomized blocks with 12 treatments and four repetitions each, with doses of zero, five, ten and fifteen grams of biochar, mixed with 20 g of complete fertilizer except for the control, the variables analyzed were: height of the plant (AP), number of branches (NR), root length (LR), root perimeter (AR), leaf length (LH), leaf width (AH). The results obtained indicate that the best doses were 5 and 15 g of biochar, which achieved excellent results with the Sarchimor variety, while the Lojana and Conilon varieties obtained lower values, possibly affected by their genetics. The AP variable indicates that the Sarchimor variety obtained a higher plant height in the assigned treatments, the ST3BY15 and ST1BY5 treatments have a height of 75 cm, while the lowest heights among the three varieties analyzed are all those at which no made application of biochar LTBY0, ST0BY0 and CT0BY0. The LR variable is significant, their means indicate that the ST3BY15 and LT3BY15 treatments show greater root elongation with 53 and 43 cm respectively, the addition of biochar activated the mycorrhizae and these stimulated the development of the root system with a better uptake of phosphorus found associated with increasing the growth rate of the roots. It is concluded that the best doses in all treatments are 5 and 15 g of biochar for best results and that the variety with the best response to these treatments was Sarchimor. It is recommended to use biochar in a mixture with fertilizers to enhance its effect on plants, prevent their loss, improve CEC, among other benefits that improve coffee cultivation.