Variety Evaluation, Nutrient Assessment and Effect of Stimplex on Yield Performance of Leafy Greens in Organic Management System
Abstract
Organic farming is becoming popular among the consumers and growers in urban areas as well. As the leafy greens are very low maintenance and small stature crops, so fit very well in urban agriculture. Leafy greens are very popular as salads and as vegetable crops. They taste very good and are very nutritious as well, provide minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and other phytochemicals. In total 24 varieties of six leafy green vegetables were evaluated at the certified organic field and 21 in hoop house at Tennessee State University. Results from open field trials showed that, lettuce variety ‘Buttercrunch’ was the highest yielder with an average yield of 18838.6 lb/acre. Kale variety, ‘white Russian’ had the highest yield of 18189 lb/acre. The ‘Tender green’, and ‘Giant red’ varieties of mustard were the highest yielders. In collards, the ‘champion’ was the higher yielder with 18069.8 lb/acre average yield. Out of two varieties of Swiss chard, the ‘Rainbow chard’ has higher average yield of 17409.9 lb/acre. For Amaranths varieties, ‘Love lies bleeding’ variety performed better than the ‘Hopi red dye’ variety with an average yield of 10300.4 lb/acre. As far as hoop house trials are concerned, among the six lettuce varieties, ‘Buttercrunch’ was the highest yielder. Variety named as ‘White Russian’ kale and ‘Tender green’ mustard performed very well and had highest yield with average plant weight of 317 and 634.64 g/plant, respectively. Among the remaining crops the ‘Golden chard’ variety of Swiss chard, ‘Hopi red dye’ variety of amaranths have the highest yield. Kale extracts were had highest amount of total phenolic content and the plants treated with the Stimplex also had the significantly (<0.05) higher amount of total phenolic steam with compared untreated plants. The overall Vitamin C content of six of treated vegetables was significantly (<0.05) higher than the untreated plant samples. All the Stimplex treated plant samples of six vegetables except kale and amaranth had the significantly higher DPPH scavenging activity than the treated plants. The DPPH scavenging activity decreased in treated plants in case of kale and lettuce. Six Stimplex treated plant had higher reducing power as compared to the untreated plants.
Subject Area
Agriculture|Plant sciences
Recommended Citation
Ravneet Sandhu Sandhu,
"Variety Evaluation, Nutrient Assessment and Effect of Stimplex on Yield Performance of Leafy Greens in Organic Management System"
(2016).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI10243708.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI10243708