Respostas de plantas de pepino à salinidade da água de irrigação

Abstract

The vegetable cultures in general, have shown to be sensitive to the damages caused by the excess of salt deposited in the soil, from the irrigation water, mainly when cultivated under protected atmosphere. For the culture of cucumber, few works relate the decrease in the culture development due to the salinity of the water used. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of irrigation water salinity on the development and production of “Caipira” cucumber, grown in protected atmosphere. The experiment was carried out at a greenhouse model arch, in an entirely randomized design with five treatments (electric conductivity of the irrigation water of 0.1; 2.0; 4.0; 6.0 and 8.0 dS m-1) and eight replications. The appraised parameters were: total and commercial production; total and commercial number of fruits; diameter of the lap of the plant; length of the main stem and electric conductivity of the saturation extract measured three times during the growth cycle. After harvesting it was verified that there was an increase of the soil salinity and consequently, a linear reduction of the total and commercial productions in function of the salinity of the irrigation water