We are no longer updating the Research Digest. All content remains.
The Permaculture Research Digest has summaries of newly published permaculture-related research. All items are hyper-linked to the original publication.
The 'January 2013' archive contains 60 items published in 2012.
Items marked with a # have restricted public access, although abstracts are freely available.
Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense) is a perennial shrub plant mainly
cultivated in Ecuador, Colombia, and Central America where it represents
an important cash crop. Current cultivation practices not only cause
deforestation and large-scale soil degradation but also make plants
highly susceptible to pests and diseases. The use of arbuscular
mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can offer a possibility to overcome these
problems. In
this study, the impact of AMF inoculation on growth and nutrition
parameters of naranjilla has been assessed. For inoculation three
European reference AMF strains
and soils originating from three differently managed naranjilla
plantations in Ecuador (conventional, organic, and permaculture) have
been used. The growth response experiment has
shown that two of the three reference AMF strains, a mixture of the
three and soil from a permaculture site led to significantly better
acquisition of phosphorus (up to 104%) compared to uninoculated
controls. These results suggest that the use of AMF strains and local
soils as inoculants represent a valid approach to improve nutrient
uptake efficiency of naranjilla and consequently to reduce inputs of
mineral fertilizers.
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