Agronomic viability of New Zealand spinach and kale intercropping

ABSTRACT The intercropping is a production system that aims to provide increased yield with less environmental impact, due to greater efficiency in the use of natural resources and inputs involved in the production process. An experiment was carried out to evaluate the agronomic viability of kale and New Zealand spinach intercropping as a function of the spinach transplanting time. (0, 14, 28, 42, 56, 70, 84 and 98 days after transplanting of the kale). The total yield (TY) and yield per harvest (YH) of the kale in intercropping did not differ from those obtained in monoculture. The spinach TY was influenced by the transplanting time, the earlier the transplanting, the higher the TY. The spinach YH was not influenced by the transplanting time, but rather by the cultivation system. In intercropping, the spinach YH was 13.5% lower than in monoculture. The intercropping was agronomically feasible, since the land use efficiency index, which was not influenced by the transplanting time, had an average value of 1.71, indicating that the intercropping produced 71% more kale and spinach than the same area in monoculture. Competitiveness coefficient, aggressiveness and yield loss values showed that kale is the dominating species and spinach is the dominated.

Tolerancia experimental de las especies vegetales Nicotiana glauca, Jacaranda mimosifolia, Tecoma stans, Medicago sativa y Spinacea oleracea al boro, en Argentina

Experimental tolerance to boron of the plant species Nicotiana glauca, Jacaranda mimosifolia, Tecoma stans, Medicago sativa y Spinacea oleracea in Argentina. The activity of boron industries is a punctual and diffuse source of air, soil and water pollution. Therefore, it is a priority to study possible ways of reducing this impact. A relatively new technology for reducing soil pollution is phytoremediation, which uses plants and associate microorganisms. The first step in phytoremediation is to detect tolerant plant species, which is the objective of this work. A laboratory experiment to assess the germination, survival and growth of different species at different boron concentrations was carried out following a factorial design with two factors: plant species and boron concentration. Boron concentrations were determined at the beginning and the end of the experiment, taking into account substrates with and without vegetation. We found significant differences for treatment, species and the interaction species*treatment. N. glauca, M. sativa and J. mimosifolia were the most tolerant species. The other species had a decrease in the response variables, with the concentration of the pollutant. All the species had a low survival at the highest boron concentration. The reduction in boron concentration at the end of the experiment was higher in the 30 ppm treatment with M. sativa and the lower was registered in the 20 ppm treatment with J. mimosifolia and in 30 ppm with T. stans and S. oleraceae. We conclude that N. glauca, M. sativa and J. mimosifolia can be considered in remediation plans. Rev. Biol. Trop. 56 (3): 1053-1061. Epub 2008 September 30.

La actividad de las industrias borateras constituye una fuente puntual y difusa de contaminación del aire, suelo y aguas superficiales y profundas. Por lo tanto, el estudio y experimentación acerca de las posibles formas de contrarrestar este impacto constituye una prioridad. Una técnica relativamente nueva para descontaminar suelos es la fitorremediación, que emplea plantas y microorganismos asociados. El primer paso es detectar las especies vegetales tolerantes, lo que constituye el objetivo de este trabajo. Se realizó un experimento en laboratorio para evaluar la germinación, la supervivencia y el crecimiento de distintas especies en diferentes concentraciones de boro. Al comienzo y al final del experimento se determinó la concentración de boro en el sustrato para cada tratamiento y para sustratos con y sin vegetación. Se encontraron diferencias significativas debidas al tratamiento, la especie y la interacción especie *tratamiento. M. sativa, N. glauca y J. mimosifolia fueron las especies de mayor tolerancia al boro. Las otras especies presentaron una disminución en todas las variables-respuesta en función de la concentración del contaminante. Todas presentaron una baja supervivencia en la máxima concentración. La disminución de boro fue máxima en el tratamiento de 30 ppm de boro con M. sativa y la menor se registró en los tratamiento de 20 ppm de boro con J. mimosifolia y de 30 ppm de boro con T. stans y S. oleraceae. Se concluye que N. glauca, M. sativa y J. mimosifolia podrían considerarse como prometedoras en remediación.