Production of yellow passion fruit seedlings as a function of alternative growing media and controlled-release fertilizer

ABSTRACT With the objective of evaluate the use of residues as growing media for the yellow passion fruit seedlings, a randomized block experiment was carried out with treatments distributed in a 2 × 21 factorial scheme corresponding to fertilizer management (presence and absence of controlled-release fertilizer), and combination of growing media from five local agro-industrial wastes (bark of cupuaçu fruit, almond shell of castanha-do-brasil, lumps of acerola fruit, lumps of cajá fruit, and lumps of açaí fruit) and a commercial growing media, which tested pure and was combined in a 1:1 ratio. The variables measured were the seedling height; stem diameter; height: stem diameter ratio; number of leaves; shoot, root, and total dry matter; and Dickson quality index. The dates were submitted to univariate and multivariate analyzes. The pairwise combination of growing medias produced from the bark of cupuaçu fruit, almond shell of castanha-do-brasil, lumps of acerola fruit, lumps of cajá fruit, lumps of açaí fruit, and commercial growing media in a proportion of 1:1 and with the use of controlled-release fertilizer constitute an alternative for other growing medias in the production of yellow passion fruit seedlings.