On sandy, boron-poor soils, liming induced severe boron deficiency and drastically reduced the dry matter yield of young olive trees

• Autor(a) principal: Arrobas, Margarida
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Raimundo, Soraia, Conceição, Nuno, Moutinho-Pereira, José, Correia, Carlos M., Rodrigues, M.A.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/29356
• topic: Soil acidity; Olea europaea; Olive cultivars; Schist soil; Granite soil; Phosphorus fertilization

In the northeast of Portugal, like in many parts of the world, most soils are acidic, which may hamper crop productivity. This study presents the findings of a factorial experiment on olive (Olea europaea L.) involving three factors: (i) soil type [schist (Sch) and granite (Gra)]; (ii) cultivars [Cobrançosa (Cob) and Arbequina (Arb)]; and (iii) fertilizer treatments [liming (CaCO3) plus magnesium (Mg) (LMg), phosphorus (P) application (+P), boron (B) application (+B), all fertilizing materials combined (Con+), and an untreated control (Con-)]. Dry matter yield (DMY) did not show significant differences between cultivars, but plants grown in schist soil exhibited significantly higher biomass compared to those in granite soil. Among the treatments, +B and Con+ resulted in the highest DMY (50.8 and 47.2 g pot−1, respectively), followed by +P (34.3 g pot−1) and Con- (28.6 g pot−1). Treatment LMg yielded significantly lower values (15.6 g pot−1) than Con-. LMg raised the pH above 7 (7.36), leading to a severe B deficiency. Although Con+ also raised the pH above 7 (7.48), it ranked among the most productive treatments for providing B. Therefore, when applying lime to B-poor sandy soils, moderate rates are advised to avoid inducing a B deficiency. Additionally, it seems prudent to apply B after lime application.