RESEARCH ARTICLE
Effects of Organic Amendment Application on Soil Quality and Garlic Yield in Central-Western Argentina
M. F. Filippini1, A. Abril*, 2, M. Cony3, L. Noe2, M. Venier1, D. Consoli1, R. Vallone4
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 1
Last Page: 8
Publisher ID: TOASJ-6-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874331501206010001
Article History:
Received Date: 10/09/2009Revision Received Date: 11/09/2010
Acceptance Date: 02/12/2011
Electronic publication date: 03/2/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
We analyzed during two garlic crop cycles, the effects of chicken manure and vermicompost on soil chemical and biological properties in an agricultural farm irrigated with municipal wastewater of central-western Argentina. Also we evaluate garlic yield and possible health risks as resulting from the organic amendments and the wastewater use. We found that: a) different doses and types of amendments did not have any significant effects on soil fertility; b) chicken manure and soil before planting, had E. coli and Salmonella spp.; and c) crop yields were quite similar in all treatments, only treatments with 8 Mg ha-1 of both amendments (chicken manure and vermicompost) without N fertilized, were significantly higher than control in both garlic assays. These results are probably the consequence of heavily tilled soils and poor quality of irrigation water with high abundance of enteric bacteria and labile organic matter content. We conclude that to obtain beneficial effects on soil fertility from organic amendment application, wastewater treatment systems must be improved and tillage practices must be reduced.