Evaluation of agave bagasse compost as a component of substrates to produce seedlings of blue agave

Abstract

Blue agave is the raw material for the production of tequila through a distillation process that generates about 400 thousand tons of bagasse, which, in part, is transformed into compost. Micro-propagated agave plants require an adjustment period of about nine months in the nursery or greenhouse shade, for which is grown in a container with a commercial substrate. For this stage, there are still no morphological parameters that serve as reference for evaluating the quality of the plants that can be planted in the field. For this reason, the aim of the study was to evaluate some morphological responses of seedlings of blue agave (micro-propagated) grown with different organic substrates: A commercial substrate (80% cocoa powder, 10% peat and 10% agave bagasse compost), coconut powder, and Canadian peat and four compost mixtures of agave bagasse. We established a completely randomized design with four replications, considering each plant as the experimental unit in greenhouses, between September 2007 and June 2008 in Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico. The results were statistically evaluated using ANOVA and mean comparisons by DMS. The substrate mixtures with thebestresultswerewiththecomposttreatmentsbagasse at 50%, followed by 30% of the compost and finally 70%, supplemented with coconut powder. The maximum values of the study variables recorded were: pineapple diameter, 5.0 cm, stem diameter, 3.8 cm, number of leaves, 15; leaf length, 55.4 cm and width of the longest leaf, ~ 4 cm, measures that could be used as agave quality standards before field planting.