The Effect of Organic Compost Content on Production and Quality of Artichoke (Cynara scolymus L.) Organically Grown

摘要

Four various types of compost have been tested on an organic artichoke crop, variety 'Violet d' Hyères'. Two of these composts are made with cattle manure, sheep manure and olive solid by-products while olive liquid by-products are added to the first (C1) and not to the second (C2); the two others are made with poultry manure, while olive liquid by-products are added to the first (C_3) and not to the second (C4). The results showed that the parameters of growth, namely, the plant height and the number of offshoots developed by plant, were not influenced by the content of the compost: the plants treated with compost C_3 were significantly shorter than the ones developed on C1. However, control plants developed without compost were smaller than the ones grown with composts. We noted a significant difference in the yield earliness between composts made with cattle and sheep manure and those made with poultry manure. Indeed, C1 and C2 gave higher early yield than C_3 and C4. On the other hand, the addition of olive liquid by-products in the composts C1 allowed a significantly higher number of early buds by plant than in the situation without olive liquid by-products. On the other hand, the addition of olive liquid by-products had no influence on plants grown with composts made with poultry manure. For the total yield, the plants grown with the compost C_3 yielded significantly less than the ones grown with C1, C2 and C4. Otherwise, the compost content and the addition of olive liquid by-products did not influence the final production of the artichoke for the other treatments. There was no significant difference in terms of quality parameters of buds between the different composts uses. However, these parameters varied along the cycle during and we obtained better quality of artichoke heads in January than in February and March.