The salinity of the soils and of the waters, in a lot of arid and semi-arid areas of the Brazilian northeast constitutes a serious obstacle for the system of agricultural production. During the period from November 2007 to February 2008 an experiment was carried out in order to evaluate the effects of the irrigation water salinity and liquid bovine manure during the seedlings formation of guava cv. Paluma. The treatments were distributed in a randomized block design, in a factorial scheme 5 x 2, referring to levels of water salinity (0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 dS m-1) in soil without and with liquid bovine manure in six replications and six plants per plot. Soil salinity was markedly elevated with an increasing salinity of irrigation water reflecting on decline of plant growth in height, stem diameter, leaf area, growth of roots and biomass production by guava plants, but with less intensity in plants with liquid bovine manure. The plants under irrigation with saline water and the organic product exceeded those treatments without the product at 86.9, 72.4, 11.0, 252.4, 351.0 and 39.7% of growth in height, stem diameter, length of roots, leaf area and biomass of roots and shoots respectively.
Psidium guajava L.; salinity; organic product
