MD2 pineapples fertilizer trials

Abstract

Pineapple (Ananas comosus) is the common name for a tropical plant and its edible fruit which are coalesced berries. Pineapple is eaten fresh or canned or juiced. The popularity of the pineapple is due to its sweet-sour taste containing 15% sugar and malic and citric fruit acids. It is also high in vitamin B1, B2, B6 and C. Its protein-digesting enzyme bromelain seems to help digestion at the end of a high proteinmeal(http://dictionary.reference.com!browse!pineapple). The Ministry of Food and Agriculture- Export marketing and quality awareness project (MOFA-EMQAP) conducted trials on MD2 pineapples. The treatments used were: Applying the fertilizer at monthly and or 2 weeks interval using potassium sulphate (50% K20) (SP), potassium nitrate -46% K20, 13%N (PN) or potassium chloride (Muriate of potash MP) -60% K20. All treatments were calculated to give a ratio of 2.5 K20 and 1 N. The N source is from urea (46%N). The farmer's practice was used as a control. There were 28treatments in all with five replicates making a total number of 140 samples. The following parameters were determined for each of the 140 fruits: weight of fruits, crown weight, crown to fruit ratio, length of fruits without peduncle, length of crown, core diameter, pH, brix, refractive index, total acidity as citric acid, translucence, sugar-acid ratio. The R2T5 treated pineapples recorded the highest fruit weight of 2.3 ± 0;19kg. This was because the fertilizer was applied every two weeks for this treatment. Pineapple with the R1T4 treatment which were treated with monthly application of the Muriate of potash ( MP) gave the least fruit weight of 1.36 ± 0.04 kg. Fruits with treatments R3T1 and R4T1 recorded the same length of fruit without peduncle. About 69% of the treatments recorded 100% translucency with the rest giving 90% translucency. The R1T1 treatment however gave a translucency of 60%. The highest brix value of 13.76 ±1.16 was recorded by pineapples with the R1T4 treatment, which was treated monthly with muriate of potash (MP). R3T7 pineapple which served as the control recorded the least brix value of 11.68 ± 0.66. The Ph of the treatments ranged from 3.64 to 4.39. The treatments with muriate of potash( MP) every 2week and muriate of potash (MP) monthly yielded good quality parameters