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Evaluation of planting densities of Canavalia (Canavalia ensiformis) on growth and nitrogen content.
Contextualization: Canavalia ensiformis, belongs to the Fabaceae family, has rapid development, good biomass production and adapts to poor fertility and humidity conditions.
Knowledge gap: The massive implementation of nitrogen fertilizers has brought about what is called unused nitrogen flow. Faced with this situation, the aim is to reduce the use of these fertilizers and one of the alternatives is the implementation of green fertilizers from plant species that are efficient in transforming resources into biomass, such as Canavalia ensiformis.
Purpose: To evaluate different planting densities of Canavalia ensiformis on the variables plant height, green and dry weight, and nitrogen content.
Methodology: A completely randomized design was used with four treatments and 10 replications. Four densities of 83,250, 66,600, 55,248 and 47,286 plants per hectare were established.
Results and conclusions: Plant height in the highest density treatment was 74.6 cm, significantly lower than the other treatments (p<0.05); however, green and dry weight were higher in the densest treatment with values of 25.4 ton/ha and 6.8 ton/ha respectively. The highest nitrogen content was recorded in the highest density treatment, where 221 kg/ha was reported, compared to the less dense treatments, which did not exceed 184 ton/ha. The results of this study underline the importance of optimizing planting density to maximize fresh biomass production in Canavalia ensiformis and nutrient input to the soil.
