Optimum nitrogen fertilization of Calophyllum inophyllum seedlings under greenhouse conditions

Abstract

A greenhouse pot experiment was conducted to study the effects of nitrogen fertilization on Calophy- llum inophyllum seedlings grown with 0, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400 and 600 mg N per seedling according to exponential functions. Seedling height, root collar diameter, leaf area and total biomass increased with increasing fertilization from 0 to 200 mg N per seedling and decreased with further increase in fertilization from 300 to 600 mg N per seedling. The net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, intercellular CO₂ concentration and transpiration rate of C. inophyllum seedlings showed a unimodal parabolic trend, with peak values of 7.29 mmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹, 0.071 mol·m⁻²·s⁻¹, 220 mmol·mol⁻¹ and 1.34 mmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹, respectively, when the rate of fertilization was 200 mg N per seedling. Photosynthetic gas exchange parameters were significantly different among nitrogen treatments. Based on the critical values of leaf N and P concentration and N/P ratio, the optimum amount of nitrogen of C. inophyllum seedlings was 200–400 mg per seedling for leaf N and P concentration, and 100–400 mg per seedling for N/P ratio. It was concluded that 200–400 mg N per seedling was the most suitable nitrogen range for C. inophyllum seedlings.

Keywords

Calophyllum inophyllum / growth / nitrogen fertilization / nutrient status / photosynthesis

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Introduction of International Advanced Forestry Science and Technology Project (2014-4-73). We are grateful to Liang Kou and Jianguang Li for their assistance in the greenhouse experiment. We thank LesuYang and Bin Yu for nutrient determinations and Dr. Khongsak Pinyopusarerk for valuable comments on earlier draft of the manuscript.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Wentao Zou, Ruifeng Jia, Jinchang Yang, Rongsheng Li, and Guangtian Yin declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2016. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)