Rentabilidade econômica do cultivo do maracujazeiro-amarelo sob diferentes podas de formação

Abstract

The objective was to analyze the economic profitability of yellow passion fruit under different plant formations. The experiment was conducted in commercial orchard in the city of Lavras, MG (21º 14’ S, 45° 58’ W, 910 m altitude), for two production cycles (2006 and 2007). The treatments were the formation of plants with different number of tertiary branches (T1= 40, T2= 30, T3= 24, T4= 20 and T5= 14 per plant). The design was randomized blocks with four replications of three plants. The economic and operational costs were higher for more drastic pruning systems (20 and 14 branches per plant), which presented higher production cost and lower productivity. The net income was negative for systems of less tertiary branches (T4 and T5). The systems with less drastic pruning had positive net income ranging from R$ 1,861.06/ha in T3 to R$ 3,895.74/ha (2006/2007) in T2. In T1, T2 and T3 the economic situation result was super normal profits, indicating that the activity is getting returns higher than the best alternatives for capital employment. However, in the treatments T4 and T5, the results were of positive and negative residues, respectively, covering only part of the farming costs, with the trend that the producer seeks better alternatives for its capital application, with the abandonment of the activity.