Effect of balanced fertilizers on pineapple yield and quality in Guangxi
IPNI-2008-CHN-GX10
04 Jan 2012
2011 Annual Interpretive Summary
Effect of Balanced Fertilizers on Papaya Yield and Quality in Guangxi, 2011
This study, initiated in 2010, continued to evaluate the effects of different fertilizer treatments on fruit yield and quality of papaya grown in Nanning City, Guangxi. There were seven treatments including: an optimal treatment (OPT) and treatments individually omitting N, P, K, Mg, B, and Zn within the OPT. Since papaya response to Mo was insignificant in the previous year, it was omitted from this year’s design. The OPT treatment remained the same as set in 2010 at 900-190-960 kg N-P2O5-K2O/ha, plus 130 kg MgO/ha, 4.0 kg borax/ha, and 4.0 kg zinc sulfate/ha.
Papaya yields significantly responded to N, P, and K application at two sites in spite of the considerable difference in their productivity. Yields were reduced by 18.6 t/ha (-41.6%), 8.6 t/ha (-19.1%), and 5.7 t/ha (-12.6%) with omission of N, P, or K, respectively. Omission of Mg or Zn reduced papaya yield by 3.4% and to 4.5%, respectively, while omission of B had little effect on yield, implying that the critical value for B needs to be adjusted as soil testing did indicate existing deficiencies. Agronomic efficiencies for different fertilizer application were 20.7 kg fruit/kg N; 44.8 kg fruit/kg P2O5; 5.9 kg fruit/kg K2O; 12 kg fruit/kg MgO; 2,200 kg fruit/kg Zn, and 1,300 kg fruit/kg B, respectively.
Based on the two-year results of OPT treatments, 1,000 kg of papaya fruit requires 3.3 to 4.2 kg of N, 1.3 to 1.8 kg of P2O5, 9.0 to 11.1 kg of K2O, 1.4 to 1.8 kg of MgO, 7.4 to 9.8 g of Zn, 2.7 to 3.6 g of B, respectively. Guangxi-BFDP-08