Agro-economical evaluation of organic mather use in the comercial production of cucumber

Abstract

Different sources of organic matter were compared in the commercial production of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) cv. Aodai Nazaré in a dark red latosol under Cerrado (savannah). The experimental design was in randomized complete blocks with four replications and seven treatments: chicken manure (10 t/ha), cattle manure (20 t/ha), and processed garbage (30  t/ha) enriched with O, 5.4, 10.8 or 16.2 kg N/t, besides the check. Organic matter significantly improved marketable yield in cucumber. Treatments involving processed garbage were in general similar to the more traditional sources of organic matter. Chicken manure treatment outyielded cattle manure. In general, there was no advantage concerning the physic production volume to the N enrichment of processed garbage. The treatments were also analysed under a decision model that takes both profitability and risks into account. The best treatments under this perspective were chicken manure (10 t/ha) and processed garbage enriched with 10.8kg N/t of processed garbag.