Nectarine Productivity and Fruit Quality under Swine Manure Fertilization: Methodologies and Early Results

The disposal of swine slurry is becoming a serious problem due to pollutant effects of the nitrogen and phosphorus content of this material. To evaluate the possibility of application of swine effluent as fertilizer for peach orchard, a field test was started in 2008. Methodologies and the early results are presented in this paper. The trial has been conducted in a ‘Spring Bright’ necatrine commercial orchard in Cuneo province, Northern Italy, in a 1-ha study area following a randomized block design with three replications of five treatments: liquid slurry (LS), covered slurry (CS), solid fraction (SF), mineral nutrition (MN). Also a no-fertilized (NF) treatment was added in order to better discriminate the effect of the different fertilizations above the field nutrients content. Optimal quantity of liquid and solid materials and best surface for distribution were also calculated. Measurements of yield, yield efficiency and crop load were used to evaluate the orchard productivity. Fruit quality was assessed at harvest and after refrigeration (4 to 5°C) storage for ten days in normal atmosphere. Using ANOVA no statistically significant differences were found in productivity and fruit quality. This was the case for fruit refrigerated for 10 days. The preliminary results show that there are no differences in orchard productivity and fruit quality using swine liquid manure as fertilizer. Nevertheless, long term application have to be investigated before confirming these results. Therefore we will have to wait till the end of the experiments for the final results.