Macronutrients Contents in Two Development Phases of Heliconia psittacorum x H. spathocircinata 'Golden Torch'

Nutritional deficiency affects heliconia cut flowers production and the success of its commercialization. There is a great variation in heliconia management in farm production, mainly concerning fertilization. The use of different NPK formulation is very common without considering development phase, whether vegetative or reproductive, species, seasonality or highest flowering period. The aim of this paper was to evaluate N, P, K content in two development phases at three different plant parts. The rhizome, a mix of leaves and the third leaf from Heliconia psittacorum x H. spathocircinata 'Golden Torch' plants were used at 90 days after planting (DAP), representing the vegetative phase, and at 360 DAP representing the reproductive phase. The nutrients contents did differ statistically between the phases. The greatest nitrogen amount was observed at the reproductive phase. On the other hand, P and K content was highest at the vegetative phase. The highest N content was found in the mix of leaves and in the third leaf. The superior N content at the mix of leaves may indicate that other leaves may have a N content even higher than the third leaf. The rhizome showed a higher a higher P and K content than leaves, without any distinction between the mix of leaves or the third leaf. There was an interaction between the development phase and plant parts for all the studied macronutrients. For the elements P and K the same result for each factor separately can be observed at the interaction of these factors, where rhizome showed the highest contents at the vegetative phase which characterizes a simple interaction. These results will be useful to other research on nutrition of heliconia and complementary studies should be conducted with all macronutrients and plant parts.