Studies and Demonstration on Environmentally Sound Fertilization Technology for Vegetables and Banana

Vegetable planting area has increased to about 670,000 ha in Fujian Province, while Zhangzhou city, in the north of Fujian, is China's banana planting city with excellent banana quality and flavor. Therefore, vegetables and banana planting play an important role in agricultural production in Fujian province. However, farmers in Fujian overfertilize banana and vegetables year after year. Our investigation showed that vegetable and fruit planting posed high risk of N and P pollution in agriculture. Therefore, to improve fertilizer utilization rate and prevent N and P pollution, the Soil and Fertilizer Institute, Fujian Academy of Agricultural Science, conducted research and demonstration trials on some efficient fertilization technologies for vegetables and banana. Two banana, three vegetable, and three rice fields were chosen in Pinghe and Zhangzhou counties of Fujian province. A total of 186 soil samples, 180 plant samples, and 30 groundwater samples were collected and analyzed.

The results showed that best fertilizer (BF) treatment (630 kg N/ha, 75 kg P₂O₅/ha and 750 kg K₂O/ha) had an average banana yield of 44,593 kg/ha, which was an increase of 9% over the no potash treatment that yielded 40,485 kg/ha. Similarly, the BF treatment increased net income of the banana farmer by RMB 4,416/ha over the no potash treatment. Based on the research data from 18 banana field trials in recent years, an equation for potash fertilization has been worked out as: Y= 907.08 exp (-0.001586 X), where Y is the recommended fertilizer K rate (kg/ha) and X is the tested value of soil available K (mg/kg). Therefore, the optimum fertilization rates for banana in Fujian are 583 kg N/ha, 75 kg P₂O₅/ha and 694 kg K₂O/ha with a ratio of 100:13:119. Fujian-10