Produção de mudas de Moringa oleifera Lam. sob diferentes níveis de sombreamento

Abstract

Due to demand from the forestry sector, there is a search for seedlings, but to obtain quality seedlings to be sent to the field, some factors must be taken into account, including light, which is a factor that directly influences the development of the plant. In nurseries, shading screens are used to evaluate the behavior of species in the absence of light and thus better understand their behavior in the field. Moringa is a species with several uses and is highly sought after in the market, however, there is a lack of information regarding its production of seedlings under shaded areas. Thus, the objective of the study was to analyze the influence on the behavior of germination and initial growth of Moringa oleifera Lam. seedlings under different levels of shading, with the purpose of recommending which level is most suitable for seedling production. To carry out the research, moringa seeds were collected and sown in plastic bags with 1kg of Red-Yellow Argisol substrate. The experiment was conducted in the Production Technology Laboratory, at the Engineering and Agricultural Sciences Campus. The experiment was conducted in a completely causal design, using 4 treatments: Full sun (0%), Shading with 30%, Shading with 50% and Shading with 70%, with 20 replications, where each repetition had 5 seeds, totaling 100 seeds per treatment. After germination, uneven seedlings were thinned and one seedling remained per repetition, totaling 80 seedlings. After seed germination, 4 weekly biometrics were carried out, with the aim of evaluating: height, diameter and number of leaves. At the end of the experimental period, it was possible to evaluate the biometric growth, partition and dry matter allocation of the seedlings, in addition to the relative water content and production of photosynthetic pigments. For data analysis, they were subjected to analysis of variance and the acquired means were compared using the Tukey test (5%) with the aid of the SISVAR version 5.8 software. The SigmaPlot version 12 application was used to create graphs. After four weeks of evaluation, it was confirmed that the moringa seeds had a higher percentage of germination. In terms of height and diameter growth, the 70% treatment showed greater emphasis due to etiolation, in dry matter there was greater production in roots and total dry matter in the 30% treatment. In allocation there was greater production of root allocation in all treatments. Due to etiolation, 70% plants have low quality and are not suitable for planting, 30% treatment is recommended for the cultivation of the species.