Mineral nutrition of tropical legumes: V macronutrients and boron deficiencies in Clitovia ternatea L.

Abstract

The tropical butterfly pea is a very promising legume for Brazil specially in the northeast region of the country. In order to obtain: - A clear picture of the macronutrients and boron deficiencies symptoms; - Levels of the macronutrients and boron in normal and deficient plants. Butterfly peas where cultivated in pots containing pure quartz and irrigated several times a day with nutrient solutions manured as: complete, -N, -P, -K, -Ca, -Mg, -S and -B. It was observed that the visual sintomatology of the deficiencies were similar the the observed for other tropical legumes. The levels of the nutrients in the leaves of normal and deficients plants, expresed as dry matter, were: N% 3.51 - 1.59; P% 0.96 -0.18; K%3.42 - 1.58; Ca% 1.62 - 0.50; Mg% 0.89 - 0.38; S% 0.13 - 0.09; B ppm 73.0 - 16.0.