Growth of cotton irrigated with wastewater and under organic fertilization

ABSTRACT The objective of this work was to determine the potential use of fish farming effluent associated with organic fertilization for the growth of ‘BRS 416’ cotton. The experiment was carried out in a greenhouse at the Center for Agrarian Sciences of the Federal Rural University of the Semi-Arid Region (UFERSA), Mossoró, RN, Brazil, in a randomized block design, with a 5 × 5 factorial scheme and four replicates. Treatments included mixtures of fish farming effluent and public-supply water (0, 25, 50, 75, and 100% effluent) and five concentrations of goat manure (0, 5, 10, 15, and 20% based on soil volume). Plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, root length, leaf area, leaf dry mass, root dry mass, stem dry mass and total dry mass were evaluated. The use of substrate with 20% goat manure irrigated with dilution D4 (75% FFE and 25% PSW) favored the performance of the variables PH, SD, NL, RL, LA, LDM, RDM, SDM and TDM of ‘BRS 416’ cotton plants. Reuse of the fish farming effluent D5 (100% FFE), with electrical conductivity of 3.59 dS m-1, is an alternative that favors the growth and biomass production of ‘BRS 416’ cotton plants.