#agronomic

Pruning is a strategy employed in many areas to rejuvenate coffee plants and increase berry production. The study was conducted at Cagayan State University, Lal-lo, Philippines, from May, 2021 to June, 2023, focused on rejuvenating old coffee trees through full stumping method for sustainable production. The study evaluated the agronomic performance of newly pruned coffee trees which includes plant height, leaf length, number of leaves, stem girth and Leaf Area Index (LAI). A Randomized Complete Block Design and five treatments was employed across five hectares of newly pruned coffee trees, with 20 sample trees per hectare and three blocks. Treatments included: T1-all epicormic shoots permitted to grow, T2-two robust epicormic shoots retained at 1.5 m, T3-four robust epicormic shoots retained at 1.5 m, T4-two robust epicormic shoots grown to maximum height and T5-four robust epicormic shoots grown to maximum height. Insignificant differences were observed in plant height at 30 days after pruning (DAP), number of leaves at 30–90 DAP, stem girth at 30–150 DAP, and LAI at 30 DAP. However, significant results were noted in plant height at 60–150 DAP, number of leaves at 120–150 DAP, leaf length at 30–150 DAP, and LAI at 60–150 DAP. Treatment T4 achieved the best results in plant height, leaf number, stem girth, leaf length, and LAI, comparable to T1. The study recommends adopting T4 for optimal growth and suggests to conduct same study on yield performance of the newly pruned coffee trees and further trials during the dry season for more conclusive findings.

In this study, the performance of different lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) varieties using two commercialized hydroponic solutions was investigated. Specifically, it aimed to 1) evaluate the suitability of growing different lettuce varieties using two different hydroponic nutrient solutions and 2) determine the effect of these nutrient solutions using three varieties of lettuce on the agronomic characteristics and its components parameters of lettuce, such as plant height (cm), number of leaves, length of roots (cm), average weight per plant (g), fresh biomass (g) total yield (g), and cost and return analysis. The factorial experiment in Completely Randomized was used with three replications to test the following treatments: Factor A – (Variety of Lettuce) V1– ABC, V2 – DEF and V3 – GHI while Factor B (Solutions), T1 – Solution A and T2 – Solution B. Based on the results of the study, among the three (3) varieties tested, V2 (DEF) obtained the heaviest weight of total yield and the average length, average height, and fresh biomass. In contrast, V3 (GHI) obtained the most number of leaves and longest length of roots. On the other hand, among the nutrient solutions, solution A produced the tallest, most number of leaves, longest length of roots, and heaviest fresh weight while solution B produced the most number of leaves.

Organic agriculture takes pro-active approach as opposed to treating problems after they emerged. The experiment was laid out in a 500m2 area divided into five treatments with 3 blocks following the Randomized Complete Block (RCBD) design. Each block was subdivided into equal plots measuring 5m x 4m each for the treatments. The study was conducted at the Nature Farm of Cagayan State University, Piat Campus. Findings show that the tallest plants, most number of fruits, heaviest fruits, highest fruits, and highest return of investment were obtained by the plants applied with combined inorganic fertilizer and vermicast. Moreover, the soil pH has a slight decrease from 6.52 to 5.25 while organic matter (N) content of the soils has slightly increased from 0.72 – 1.03. Conclusively, application of combined 90-0-0kg N ha-1 and 10 bags of vermicast contributes significant impact on the growth and development of the test plant and improved its agronomic characteristics.