Effect of liming and N, P, K or B application as fertilizer on chestnut tree crop nutritional status and growth
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abstract
The chestnut tree is practically the only cash crop grown in the mountain highlands of
NE Portugal. Despite the many phytosanitary problems that this crop is currently
facing, producers have been increasing the planted areas in response to favorable
prices that the chestnut fruit has been reached in the market. The farmers have also
been showing a new attitude regarding the cropping technique. In the past, the
chestnut groves were a very marginal crop rarely fertilized. Nowadays, the producers
seek to make rational fertilizations, hoping to balance the trees, allowing them to
better cope with unfavorable biotic and abiotic stresses and stimulate productivity.
However, studies on chestnut trees fertilization are rare. Little is known about the
response of this species to liming or to fertilizers application. In this work, results are
presented on the response of young chestnut plants to liming and nitrogen,
phosphorus, potassium or boron application. Three years after planting, the results
showed that the application of the nutrients N, P, K or B as fertilizer increased the
concentration of each one of the respective nutrients in the leaves. However, the
height of the plants was particularly reduced in the plots not fertilized with boron,
followed by those not fertilized with potassium, in comparison to the plots receiving
the respective nutrients. Boron and potassium appeared as the most limiting nutrients
in this early phase of plant growth.
