The nutritional levels in leaves and fruits of fig trees as a function of pruning time and irrigation

Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluating the nutritional content in leaves and fruits of the fg tree ‘Roxo de Valinhos’, pruned at different periods corresponding to the months of July, August, September and October in the years of 2004 and 2005, with and without the use of irrigation, in the county of Botucatu, São  Paulo  State,  Brazil. To  achieve  this  objective,  the  adopted  experimental  design was  in  blocks with subdivided plots and 5 replications, in which plots corresponded to treatments with and without irrigation and subplots included prunings done in the above-mentioned four months. The levels of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, B, Cu, Mn and Zn in leaves and fruits were evaluated in the two crop cycles. The results indicated no signifcant differences among macro and micronutrient  levels  in  the  leaves subjected  to treatments with and without  irrigation  in  the cycle 2004/05, except  for cupper which showed higher level with the treatment including irrigation (6 mg kg-1). In the fruits, there was no difference, except for Zn, which also showed the highest levels (28 mg kg-1) with irrigation. In the crop cycle 2005/06, there were differences for N (40 g kg-1) and K (20 g kg-1) in the leaves, where the highest levels were observed with the treatment including irrigation. In the fruits, N had signifcant difference and its highest level was observed without  irrigation (21 g kg-1). In relation  to  the pruning periods, signifcant differences were observed for Ca, Fe and Zn content in the leaves and Ca, K, Mg, S and Zn content in the fruits in  the crop cycle 2004/05.  In  the cycle 2005/06,  there were not differences among  the  levels of  the evaluated nutrients in the leaves, and in the fruits there was difference for N, Ca and Cu.