Irrigation and Fertilization Management Effect on Chinese Cabbage Chemical Composition

ABSTRACT

Chinese cabbage is a leafy green with great economic potential, mostly in those areas where it has not yet been widely cultivated, but its demand is increasing, due to its high nutritional and therapeutic value. The experimental factors involved three cultivars of Chinese cabbage, different irrigation, and fertilization treatments. The main aims of the present research were to establish the influence of water and fertilization management on Chinese cabbage chemical composition in an organic cropping system and to determine relations between the organic fertilizers and cabbage leaf macroelements, essential microelements, and heavy metal concentrations. The results showed that sheep manure was richer in almost all the studied elements, including heavy metals; plants fertilized with this manure have higher levels of heavy metals; irrigation had a secondary effect on the decreasing heavy metal concentration in plants; and plants fertilized with biofertilizers showed high amounts of potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn).

KEYWORDS:

• Biofertilizers
• correlations
• heavy metals
• macroelements
• microelements
• organic crops

Funding

This paper was published under the frame of European Social Fund, Human Resources Development Operational Program 2007–2013, project No. POSDRU/159/1.5/S/132765.