Propagation of coffee conilon “Vitória” in conventional and alternative substrates

Abstract

The sustainable production of inputs or products, either agricultural or industrial, has become an international concern in the last years. Thus, one of the biggest challenges today is to combine production with sustainability. Industrial waste use in agriculture is an alternative that has been gaining strength. The objective of this study was to evaluate the development, physiology and quality of Coffea canephora seedlings from the 13 genotypes (variety Vitória Incaper 8142), in conventional substrate in comparison to a substrate based on tannery sludge. A 2 x 13 factorial scheme was used in which the first factor was the two substrates (conventional substrate and substrate with tannery sludge), and the second factor was the 13 Vitória - Incaper 8142 Conilon coffee genotypes, arranged in a randomized block design with four repetitions. At 150 days after planting, the following characteristics were evaluated: leaf number, plant height, stem diameter, canopy diameter, leaf area, SPAD chlorophyll index, nitrogen balance index, total chlorophyll index, anthocyanins index and flavonoids index, dry shoot matter mass, dry root matter mass,dry total matter mass and Dickson quality index . No significant interaction was observed between the factors evaluated. The substrate containing tannery sludge provided less gain for most of the growth characteristics when compared to the conventional substrate. The tannery substrate promoted a greater production of defense metabolites in plants. As for the response pattern between the genotypes of the Vitória - Incaper 8142 variety, a high unevenness was observed in the initial development, both for their phenological and physiological characteristics, which is a reflect of the genetic variability existing between the genotypes.