Effects of Nitrogen Fertilizers on the Growth and Nitrate Content of Lettuce ( Lactuca sativa L.)

Cheng-Wei Liu, Yu Sung, Bo-Ching Chen and Hung-Yu Lai
Additional contact information
Cheng-Wei Liu: Department of Post-Modern Agriculture, MingDao University, Changhua 52345, Taiwan
Yu Sung: Department of Horticulture, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227, Taiwan
Bo-Ching Chen: Department of Post-Modern Agriculture, MingDao University, Changhua 52345, Taiwan
Hung-Yu Lai: Department of Post-Modern Agriculture, MingDao University, Changhua 52345, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth and development; however, due to environmental pollution, high nitrate concentrations accumulate in the edible parts of these leafy vegetables, particularly if excessive nitrogen fertilizer has been applied. Consuming these crops can harm human health; thus, developing a suitable strategy for the agricultural application of nitrogen fertilizer is important. Organic, inorganic, and liquid fertilizers were utilized in this study to investigate their effect on nitrate concentrations and lettuce growth. The results of this pot experiment show that the total nitrogen concentration in soil and the nitrate concentration in lettuce increased as the amount of nitrogen fertilizer increased. If the recommended amount of inorganic fertilizer (200 kg·N·ha ?1 ) is used as a standard of comparison, lettuce augmented with organic fertilizers (200 kg·N·ha ?1 ) have significantly longer and wider leaves, higher shoot, and lower concentrations of nitrate.

Keywords: inorganic fertilizer; lettuce; liquid fertilizer; nitrate; organic fertilizer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4427/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4427/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:4:p:4427-4440:d:35325

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().