Yield and quality of fertigated papaya fruits submitted to potassium doses in Northeast Pará

Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of potassium doses supplied via fertigation on yield and fruit quality of Solo papaya, cultivar THB. The experiment was installed in August 2018 in the Experimental Station of the Federal Rural University of Amazonia, Municipality of Igarapé-Açu, State of Para, Brazil, and lasted for 13 months. The experiment was conducted in completely randomized design with four replications and treatments applications started in the fifth month after planting. Treatments were four doses of K20 (160, 320, 480 and 640 kg K2O ha-1) that correspond to 50, 100, 150 and 200% of recommended dose based on soil analysis. Potassium was supplied in the form of KNO3, in the irrigation water, associated to the others fertilizers. During the five month harvest period, the papaya yield reached 22.3 t ha-1, fruit number was 67,776 fruit ha-1, fruit weight was about 418.6 g and soluble solid titratable acidity ratio as high as 13.9.