Effect of the application of organic compost decomposed by different earthworm species on lettuce yield (Lactuca sativa L.)

Abstract

The present work aimed to evaluate the effect of the application of organic compounds decomposed by different species of earthworms on lettuce yield. The work was carried out at the Polytechnic Institute of Manica between June and October 2025, and an experiment was installed and conducted using a Randomized Block Design (DBC) with 4 replications and 4 treatments (T1 – without fertilization; T2 – organic matter decomposed by the local earthworm; T3 – organic matter decomposed by imported earthworm and T4 – inorganic fertilizer composed of NPK and Urea), at 40 to 45 days after transplanting, the morphological and agronomic variables of lettuce were evaluated, namely, leaf number (NF), leaf length (CF), root length (CR), fresh mass (MF), dry mass (DM), leaf moisture (HF), ash content and colorimetry. It was through Excel 2021 that the collected data were organized and later analyzed through analysis of variance and the means compared by Tukey's test at the significance level of 5% in the Statistix 10 program. From the results obtained, it was found that there were significant effects between the treatments for all the variables analyzed, except for the ash content, the T2 treatment produced the highest average number of leaves (33 leaves), the highest average leaf and root length was observed in the T3 treatment (27.5cm and 13.5cm), the T2 treatment produced the highest average yield of fresh mass and leaf moisture of 537.91g/plant and 471.92g/plant and the T3 treatment presented higher yield average in dry mass with 255g/plant, in general, the T2 and T3 treatments showed higher average yields than the T1 and T4 treatments. As for colorimetry, lettuce showed a light refraction (light) for all treatments, with a dark green color in lettuce under T1 treatment and slightly yellow in lettuce with treatments T1, T2 and T4.