Effects of Leonardite and Mineral Fertilizer Applications on Plant Growth and Soil Quality of Garlic (Allium sativum L.)

Abstract

Turkey is one of the major garlic producing country in the world and the significant amount of Turkey’s production has been made using a garlic variety called Taşköprü garlic (Allium sativum L.) in Kastamonu, Turkey. In order to improve the quality of garlic production, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different doses of leonardite organic fertilizer, mineral fertilizer NPK and the mixture of both the leonardite and NPK fertilizers on the soil properties and mean performances of different characters and yield production of Taşköprü garlic. The treatments were: the plots without leonardite and NPK fertilizers (Control), (2) 80 N kg ha-1 + 40 kg ha-1 P2O5 + 100 kg ha-1 K2O (MF), (3) 2.6 ton ha-1 leonardite (Leo1), (4) 6.9 ton ha-1 leonardite (Leo2), (5) 9.7 ton ha-1 leonardite (Leo3), (6) Leo1 + MF, (7) Leo2 + MF and Leo3 + MF. Most soil characteristics and the different characters and yield production of Taşköprü garlic statistically varied between the different fertilizer treatments. The plots with the Leo3MF application showed the highest soil organic C, N, P and K concentrations, and the SOCstock and TNstock, while it had the highest bulb weight, length, equatorial diameter, weight of cloves, width of cloves, length of cloves as well as bulb yield per decare. Of the soil properties, the garlic yield was strongly positively correlated with the soil N concentration, indicating that the applications of leonardite with the different doses or the mixture of leonardite with the mineral fertilizer were resulting in higher soil N concentration and thus having the greatest effect on the garlic yields.

Peat as a Raw Material for Plant Nutrients and Humic Substances

“…Originating from different sources, HS have different compositions and biological effects depending on their chemical structure and physicochemical properties [5][6][7]. Extracts of HS that already have industrial applications in the world are extracted from leonardites and used alone or in combination with mineral fertilizers [8][9][10]. In this way, not only are the physical properties of the soil protected and improved, but the effect of inorganic fertilizers also acquires greater efficiency-the mobility and absorption of nutrients increase, and a richer yield is obtained.…”

Response of cowpea (vigna unguiculata l.) to organic and chemical fertilizer applications on grain yield and yield components

“…Control application (unapplicated fertilizer) produced the lowest grain yield in both of the cultivars. [9] revealed that marketable bean yield was higher in leonardite application compared to recommended fertilizer doses [30] reported that mineral fertilizer + leonardite application increased soil N content and garlic yield. Similar to our results, earlier studies reported that leonardite or humic acid and other manure applications increased seed yield of chickpea, faba bean, lentil and cowpea [21,5,14,10,31].…”

Effect of C:N:P stoichiometry on soil nitrous oxide emission and nitrogen retention

“…Research into the effects of leonardite amendment on arable soil and crop performance has been widely conducted, and largely positive results have been reported. For instance, leonardite application modified soil quality and increased the soil organic C (SOC) and total N contents of soil (Sarıyıldız, 2020; J. Wang et al., 2020), accompanied by increased crop yield and fertilizer utilization rate (Akimbekov et al., 2020; Akinremi et al., 2000; Sarıyıldız, 2020). Furthermore, leonardite was found to enhance tolerance to drought and P deficiency stress of specific plants (Kaya et al., 2020).…”