Calcium and magnesium application reduced the photochemistry of photosynthesis and growth of young olive plants of the Arbequina cultivar
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Grupo Operacional Novas práticas em olivais de sequeiro: estratégias de mitigação e adaptação às alterações climáticas (Iniciativa ID 278).
In Northeast Portugal, crop productivity is low when compared to other world regions, which reduces the economic sustainability of this territory. One of the biggest obstacles of increasing the territory's competitiveness is the lack of a conclusive diagnosis that points out the causes of low productivity from which measures can be taken to reverse the situation. This work has the objective of using different soils from the two main lithological formations in the region, schists (a soil with pH 4.8) and granites (a soil with pH 4.6), with the expectation that their acidity poses different problems to young Arbequina olive trees growth. A pot experiment was arranged as a completely randomized design with six treatments, consisting on the application of Ca and Mg, P, B, Mo, a negative control (no nutrient application) and a positive control (application of Ca, Mg, P, B and Mo) and four replicates. All the pots also received N and K that were not part of the experimental design. The plants in the schist pots presented higher total shoot length, leaded by B, with an average of 66.0 cm per plant and followed by P, with 57.8 cm. The treatment that displayed the smallest total shoot length were Ca and Mg, with an average of 32.3 cm (granite) and 35.3 cm (schist). This is surprising given the acidity of the soil. The chlorophyll fluorescence ratio FV/FM was found the highest in the B treatment (granite) and the lowest in the negative control (also in granite). The pots containing schist had their higher values in Mo and the lower ones in the Ca and Mg treatment. The results, although provisional, seem to show that the management of acidic soils may not be an easy task.
