Olive pomaces represent a potential rich resource of nutrients and organic matter, that are vital for plant optimal germination and development, but some researchers suggest that olive pomaces (especially fresh olive pomaces) may have an allelopathic effect on some plant species. The objective of this thesis was to determine the allelopathic effect of olive pomaces on the germination and growth of lettuce and cabbage. We tested fresh olive pomaces (Sveže tropine), one year (Kompost 2) and three months old olive pomaces (Kompost 1). No significant effects were observable on the germination of lettuce, cabbage, basil and fava bean. In the second part, we tested an olive pomace concentration of 20 % on the growth of lettuce and cabbage. In all of the measured parameters (average plant height, weight of five plants and Fv'/Fm') the plants in the control group yielded significantly better results than in comparison with other groups. In the last part of this thesis we tested the effect of different concentrations of olive pomaces (5, 10, 15 and 20 %). There was no significant difference between the control group and some of the groups with smaller doses of olive pomaces (5 and 10 %) on lettuce. On the other hand, on cabbage plants the allelopathic effect was a bit more visible, even at lower concentrations, but still cabbages grown in higher concentrations were a lot smaller. We can conclude that in our experiment, the lower concentrations of olive pomaces had little or no allelopathic effect on lettuce and cabbage.
|
