BALANÇO NUTRICIONAL, PRODUÇÃO DE ÓLEO ESSENCIAL E MADEIRA DE Corymbia citriodora Hill & Johnson COM APLICAÇÃO DE LODO DE ESGOTO E FERTILIZANTE MINERAL

Abstract

The Corymbia citriodora is one of the most important forest species in Brazil and the reason is the diversity of its use, because it produces good quality wood and the leaves may be used for essentialoil production. Although, there are not many studies about species and the handling effect in the nutritional balance. Thisstudy aimed to evaluate the biomass production and nutrient balance in the conventional production of essential oil and wood of Corymbia citriodora with sewage sludge application.The experiment design established was the randomized blocks, with four replicates and two treatments: 1 fertilization with 10 tons ha-1 (dry mass) of sewage sludge, supplemented with K and B, and 2 - mineral fertilization. Itwas evaluated the aerial biomass production, the nutrient export of the leaves, the essential oil and woodproduction at four years old. The trees that received application of sewage sludge produced20 % more leaves biomass than the trees with mineral fertilization, resulting in larger oil production. Besides, the treeswith sewage sludge application produced 14.2 tons ha-1 yr-1 of woody biomass that was 27 % higher thanthe treatment with mineral fertilization. For both treatments the N balance was negative, buttreatment with sewage sludge application (-45 kg ha-1) was four times lower than the observed on mineralfertilization treatment (-185 kg ha-1). It may be concluded in this paper that the application of sewagesludge benefits the production of leaves biomass, essential oil and wood, besides result better nutritional balance of the Corymbia citriodora production system.