Effects of organic and microbiological fertilizers on morphological and productive characteristics of triticale in the organic farming system

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the impact of microbiological and organic fertilizers on morphological and productive characteristics of triticale during a three-year period (2009/10-2011/12). A two-factorial field experiment was arranged using a randomized block design with four replications. The object of the study was the triticale winter cultivar Odisej, and the following treatments were applied: a control variant without fertilization, microbiological fertilizer ?Slavol? (Agrounik Serbia) 5.0 l ha-1, organic fertilizer ?Biohumus Royal offert? (Altamed RS) 3.0 t ha-1 + microbiological fertilizer ?Slavol? (Agrounik Serbia) 5.0 l ha-1. The results showed that the expression of the characteristics was significantly affected by the environment. The lowest values were obtained in the first year when the most unfavourable meteorological conditions were observed. The application of microbiological fertilizer had no impact on the stem length and grain weight per spike, but it significantly increased the number of fertile spikelets (3.7%), spike length (7.7%) and grain yield (18.6%). The combined application of fertilizers provided better results for all the examined characteristics, while in comparison with the control, the differences ranged from 4.3% for the number of fertile spikelets to 46.5% for grain yield. The strongest correlation was determined between the spike length and the number of fertile spikelets (r = 0.939**). The obtained results lead to the conclusion that under variable environmental conditions, the application of fertilizers has a significant impact on morphological and productive characteristics of triticale, and consequently on the stability of this crop production in the organic farming system.