Sunflower in cultivation systems and organic fertilization

The aim of this research was to develop a cultivation system for sunflower, using appropriate in situ water collection and organic fertilization technologies. An experiment was carried out at the Centre for Agri-Food Sciences and Technology at the Federal University of Campina Grande, in a randomized block design with a 4 x 5 factorial scheme, four cultivation systems: trench, furrow, basins, corresponding to water harvesting techniques, and a control, referring to the conventional planting system, and five doses of cattle manure (0; 2.5; 5; 7.5 and 10 L m-2 ), forming twenty treatments with six replications. Morphophysiological and production aspects were evaluated. It was found that the furrow-type water collection technique and 10 L m-2 of manure increased the soil’s moisture conservation capacity, which was reflected in the physiological, growth and production variables. The sources of variation studied showed interaction-dependent behavior for photosynthesis and growth, responding to the amounts of manure linearly in furrows and trenches and quadratically in basins and conventional planting.