Response of Cultivated Broccoli and Red Cabbage Crops to Mineral, Organic and Nano-Fertilizers

Abstract

THE INTEGRATED application of different fertilizers including nano-fertilizers is a major area of interest within the modern agriculture. A field experiment was carried out aiming to investigate the effects of different types of fertilizers on growth development and productivity of red cabbage and broccoli under salinity and waterlogging stresses. The applied fertilizers included mineral fertilizer (i.e., recommended NPK fertilizers), organic fertilizer (i.e., compost tea) and nano-fertilizers (i.e., copper nanoparticles as nano-Cu) and selenium nanoparticles as nano-Se). The results verified that the vegetative growth of red cabbage and broccoli may depend on the kind of fertilizer. The recent results showed that treatments of nano-Se, nano-Cu and compost tea enhanced the plant growth, tolerance of plants to insects and induced the productivity. Our results revealed that integration of nano-fertilizers with organic fertilizers (compost tea) might be promising tool in modern and non-conventional agriculture. However, more investigations are still needed to clarify the effectiveness of these nanoparticles as well as the possible risks of using these nanomaterials if any.