Hydrolyzed Fish Fertilizer for Organic Vegetable Production Home

In the production of organic vegetables, nitrogen is important, yet can be quite costly to manage. Nitrogen management is even more challenging when production practices call for the use of polyethylene mulch combined with fertigation.

Researchers found that yellow squash had a 30% higher yield when grown with inorganic nitrogen as compared with squash grown in hydrolyzed fish fertilizer. Collards showed a 21% higher yield when grown with inorganic nitrogen source and micronutrients as compared with collards grown in the hydrolyzed fish fertilizer.

"In the second year of the study, highest yields of collards were again produced with inorganic nitrogen source with secondary and micronutrients treatments, followed by those grown in the hydrolyzed fish fertilizer treatments," the authors said. "Second-year squash grown in the inorganic N treatments produced highest yields, while squash grown in the fish fertilizer had a 16% lower yield as compared with those grown in the two inorganic N sources."

Additional results revealed that inorganic nitrogen without secondary or micronutrients produced lower marketable collard yields than the other treatments, an outcome the authors attributed to sulfur deficiency.

Source: http://phys.org/