Agronomic Efficiency of Hairy Woodrose (Merremia aegyptia L.) Mixed with Cattle Manure in the Productivity of Coriander Cultivars in the Semiarid Region of Brazil

Aims: Ecologically-based agriculture is widely applied by family farmers who grow vegetables in the semi-arid region, contributing to a great extent to the increase in production.

Place of Study: The experiment was carried out at the Rafael Fernandes Experimental Farm, belonging to the Universidade Federal Rural do Semiárido-UFERSA, with geographic coordinates of 5o03'37”S and 37o23'50”W Gr, with an altitude of 72 m, with the objective of agronomic efficiency of hairy woodrose (Merremia aegyptia L.) mixed with cattle manure in the productivity of coriander cultivars in the semiarid region of Brazil.

Study Design and Methodology: The experimental design used was complete randomized blocks in a 5 x 3 factorial scheme, with three replications. The first factor consisted of four amounts of the mixture of hairy woodrose plus cattle manure (0; 1.0; 2.0; 3.0 and 4.0 kg m-2 of bed) and the second factor consisted of three cultivars of coriander (verdão, Super-verdão and tabocas) in single cultivation. The spacing used was 0.1 x 0.05 m with five plants pit-1, corresponding to 1000 plants m-2 of bed, density used by coriander producers.

Agronomic Characteristics of Coriander: Plant height, expressed in centimeter plant-1; number, expressed in plant-1 units; productivity, expressed in grams m-2; number of sauces, expressed unit m-2 and dry mass, expressed in grams m-2 of area.

Conclusions: The best agronomic performance was obtained in the amount of 4.0 kg m-2, for the verdão cultivar, with an average value of 1585 g m-2 and 31.7 units m-2 for productivity and number of bunches, respectively.

The mixture of fertilizers of plant and animal origin is extremely important for increasing coriander production and productivity.