The influence of different fertilizer schemes on ‘Haschberg’ European elderberry growth and fruit production

Abstract

Due to their nutritional and therapeutic properties of the fruits, elderberry orchards started to gain more and more ground in Romania as well. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to improve soil quality and yield production in an elderberry orchard from Carastelec by applying both organic and mineral fertilizers. For this purpose, five fertilization schemes (FS) were set up with different ratios of cattle manure, mineral fertilizers and soil amendments. The field experiment was carried out in a randomised block design with three replicates. The best plant and yield performance among the four fertilizer schemes were recorded in FS_4 when mineral fertilizers - NPK - 16:16:16 (0,8 kg/tree) + NH₄NO₃ (0,8 kg/tree) + CaCO3 (5 kg/tree) were applied providing a yield of 204,89±1,87 kg/row equal to 4.09±0.13 kg fruit/tree and 106.93±2.57cm average annual shoot length. Double-dose organic fertilization (50 kg cow manure/tree) increased the yield by 23,8% as compared to control and shoot length by 15,28%, while lower doses of mineral fertilizers and without soil amendments improved yield performance by 38,08% and growth by 11,85%. Therefore, the findings of this study reveal that large amounts of nitrogen are necessary to be applied in combination with soil amendments in order to improve soil quality and increase elderberry yield and growth performance up to 61%

Keywords

• sambucus nigra
• preluvisol
• cattle manure
• fertilization
• mineral
• yield
• shoot length