ABSTRACT
Gherkin (Cucumis anguria) is a vegetable-fruit of the Cucurbitaceae family, of great importance to the cuisine of North and Northeast Brazil. However, gherkin is still a little studied crop, including the seedling production stage. The experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of seed treatment with biostimulant and different substrates in the production of gherkin seedlings. The experimental design was completely randomized, with treatments distributed in factorial 2 (presence or absence of the biostimulant) x 9 (different formulated substrates); substrates were formulated from mixtures of coconut fiber (FC) and Tropstrato HT vegetables (THT) {(S1= FC; S2= FC+THT (4:1); S3= FC+THT (3:1); S4= FC+THT (2:1); S5= FC+THT (1:1); S6= FC+THT (1:2); S7= FC+THT (1:3); S8= FC+THT (1:4); S9= THT}. We evaluated the number of leaves, plant height, stem diameter, main root length, shoot dry weight, root dry mass and total dry mass. A significant interaction between the factors studied was observed for most of the variables analyzed, showing that the biostimulant efficiency is related to the moisture condition and nutrients provided by the substrate. Seedlings with more leaves (4.9-5.2), height (11.46 - 14.53 cm), main root length (9.32 - 10.21 cm), dry weight of the aboveground part (0.78 - 0.92 g), total dry weight (1.09 - 1.12 g) were obtained by treating seeds with biostimulant in the substrates S4, S5 and S6. We concluded that the treatment of seeds with biostimulant Stimulate® enhanced growth of gherkin plants ‘Liso de Calcuta’, especially with the substrates S4, S5 and S6.
Keywords:
Cucumis anguria; vegetal hormones; coconut fiber.