The effect of different levels of cattle manure was evaluated in the presence and absence of mineral fertilizer on coriander, cv. Verdão production. The experimental plots were placed at Universidade Federal da Paraíba, in Areia, Brazil, from March to May 2001. The experiment was set up in a randomized block design, with treatments distributed in a 5 x 2 factorial scheme, corresponding to levels of cattle manure (0; 2.0; 4.0; 6.0 and 8.0 kg m-2) and presence or absence of mineral fertilization (10 g/m² of P2O5, 6.0 g/m² of K2O and 50 g/m² N), with four replications. There was an increase of 0.42 and 1.5 cm in plant height, for 20 and 40 days, respectively, for each kilogram of cattle manure applied to soil. In the presence of mineral fertilizer, a cattle manure level of 3.8 kg m-2 provided the highest number of bunches (49.0), while in the absence of mineral fertilizer the number of bunches of coriander increased with the increasing levels of cattle manure. This increase was in the order of 3.0 bunches for each kilogram of cattle manure added to soil. An estimated maximum yield of green mass (5.0 kg m-2) was obtained with 3.9 kg m-2 of cattle manure in the presence of mineral fertilization, while in the absence of mineral fertilizer coriander yield increased with higher levels of cattle manure, in the order of 0.24 kg m-2 for each kilogram of cattle manure added to the soil.
Coriandrum sativum L.; organic-mineral fertilization; yield
