Germination of tomato plants treated with iron and zinc sources for agronomic biofortification

Abstract

The tomato is a very demanding culture nutrients and economic has highlighted all over the world. In Brazil, some types of soils are deficient in micronutrients. In addition, iron deficiency and zinc has promoted high levels of malnutrition and anemia in people from various regions of the world. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the germination of seeds and development of tomato seedlings subjected to iron and zinc sources, using techiniques of agronomic biofortification. The experiment was conducted at the University of Bahia (UNEB) in Juazeiro-BA. The design was completely randomized, consisting of 9 treatments and 4 repetitions of 25 seeds. For seed treatment was considered an average production of 90 ton ha-1 and a spacing of 1.2 x 0.8 m between plants. They were used as a source of nutrients iron sulphate and zinc sulphate. The treatments were 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% of Zn and 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% Fe extracted by the crop until harvest. The characteristics were germination percentage and kinetics, as well as collecting five seedlings to determine the length of shoot and root, fresh and dry seedling. The results show that the increase of Fe and Zn doses in the seeds was not positive, reducing the germination and not providing a seedling development.