Yellow passion fruit crop (Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa Deg.) and natural insume use on agriculture are increasing in Remígio county Paraíba State, Brazil. In this direction was carried out an experiment, during July 2005 to December 2006 in randomized blocks in order to evaluate the effects of absence and presence of biofertilizers comum (bovine manure fertilizer fresh and water) and supermagro (bovine manure, water, macronutrients and micronutrients), applied to soil on liquid form, in level of 2.4 L plant-1, 30 days before and two months after transplanting, in the absence and presence of mineral fertilizer with NPK, with three repetition and six plantas per set using a factorial designs 3x2. The biofertilizers show more reliable to growth than fruit production of yellow passion fruit. Biggest production corresponded to treatments with the use of mineral fertilizer, specially in the first production. Comum and supermagro biofertilizer gave significative effects on vegetative growth of plants of yellow passion fruit plant but had no influence on fruits production.

The study area involves the territory limit of the Boa Vista municipality, 446.30 km2, situated in the Cariris Velhos homogeneous micro region, semi-arid region of the Paraiba State. The present work had as objective the elaboration of thematic maps of the space-time evolution of vegetal covering classes, period 1987/2004, of the Boa Vista municipality using TM/LANDSAT-5 satellite's digital images and photo interpretation techniques and images digital processing, available in the SPRING v. 4.2 software, beyond field work. The maps were elaboration be using the segment images supervised classification method and edited by SCARTA module. The results had indicated that the covering vegetal class most conserving, dense to semi dense, suffered reduction of 13.93% between 1987 and 2004; in this period the percent of areas with semi-dense to semi-sparse class was practically steady, diminishing only 0.87%; besides, the more critical covering class (semi-sparse to sparse and sparse + exposed soil) had increased 9.02% and 5.73%, respectively. These results are related with the raised use of lands for cattle the extensive one, as well as for the lack of income of the agricultural population that without option uses the vegetation in the firewood form.

An experiment was carried out at a greenhouse of Plant Science Department of the Universidad Federal Rural do Semi-Arid (UFERSA), Mossoró-RN, in the period of May to June of 2006, with the objective of determing the best treatment with scarlet starglory (Ipomoea glabra) incorporated to with cattle manure on rocket performance cv. Folha Larga. A completely randomized desing with seven treatments and three replications. The treatment consist of: T1 - 113g pot-1 of scarlet starglory in green base plus 21g pot-1 of cattle manure; T2 - 76g pot-1 of scarlet starglory in green base plus 42g pot-1 of cattle manure; T3 - 38g pot-1 of scarlet starglory in green base plus 63g pot-1 of cattle manure; T4 - 151g pot-1 of scarlet starglory in green base; T5 - 84g pot-1 of cattle manure; T6 ¿ Fertilization with NPK at the recommended dose for the crop and T7 - Control (no Fertilized soil). The rocket cultivar grown was Folha Larga. The evaluated traits were: plant height, number of leaves per pot, shoo fresh and dry mass. All the evaluated traits were significantly affected by the amounts of scarlet starglory incorporated. Height mean value for plant height, shoo fresh, dry mass and number of leaves were obtained in the amount of scarlet starglory incorporated of 151 g pot-1.

Due to a great amount of environmental differences between in vitro and ex vitro conditions, the acclimatization phase of plantlets is one of the essential points to guarantee the success in obtaining micropropagated plants. Using a substrate with chemical and organic composition is important on this phase, because it will influence in the nutritional state of the seedlings. The present paper aimed to evaluate the effects of different substrate on acclimatization of fig plants 'Roxo de Valinhos'. It were selected uniform plantlets within a 5 cm of height which were transferred to the greenhouse, with an intermittent mist system, with 50% mesh of shadow by sombrite® planted in stereo foam trays where were submitted to the following treatments: Plantmax®; carbonized rice husk; soil in combination with Osmocote®; manure (3:1:1); NPKMg. The experimental design adopted was randomized blocks in factorial scheme and the evaluation was done one hundred and twenty days after the acclimatization by the following characteristics: plant high (cm), number of leaves/plant, dry weight of aerial part and roots and total weight (g/plant). As results, it was verified that on the acclimatization of fig plantlets 'Roxo de Valinhos' using of substrate soil + carbonized rice husk+ manure promotted highest number of leaves and largest weight of aerial dry matter were obtained Plantmax® substrate without any addition of fertilizers.

The effects of five levels of nitrogen (N) fertilization (0; 60; 120; 240 and 480 kg of N/ha) upon Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris, L.) performance were evaluated. A completely random design with three replicates was used. Dry matter yield of aerial portion (DMYAP), dry matter yield of roots (DMYR), leaf/stem ratio (LSR), number of tillers (NT) and water use efficiency (WUE) were measured. The results showed a linear effect (P < 0.002) on DMYAP and DMYR and linear and quadratic effects (P < 0.02) on NT and WUE. LSR was not influenced by the nitrogen fertilization. Overall, it could be concluded that Buffel grass responded positively to nitrogen fertilization.

Manihot pseudoglasiovii is considered an excellent forage, as for its nutritional value as for the high degree of palatability. Like as other native plants of the semiarid regions it, can be considered a resource of important strategical use. It is an alternative not only for the dry period the entire year, in a conservation system. This work had as objective of study the growthof maniçoba in relation is density (1,5 x 1,5 and 2 x 2) and fertilization (manure of bovine, goat/sheep and without fertilization). It was used an experimental desing of blocks casualizaed with treatments distributed in 2 x 3 factorial. The experiment was out through in the Department of Zootecnia of Center of Agrarian Sciences of the UFPB, in Campus II in Areia-PB. There had been evaluated morphologic characteristic (Height of plant, diameter of caule, area of the pantry, leaf number and number of bifurcations) and productive characteristic (leaf production, production of branches, production of total fitomass substance and total dry substance)The analyses of variance were made employng the SAEG program. The and analyses of regression of the morfological characteristics on the time. Were mande visig SAEG program too. In accordance with the results obtaimed in this study, the different densities had not presented significant difference. However by total production for area the results were favorable to the higher density (1.5 x 1.5). Already the fertilizations with bovine and goat/sheep manures, although had shown no between them difference, had present statistical difference from treatment without fertilization, shoung higher pr.

The quality of irrigation water is one of the environmental factors that can affect the initial growth of the culture of gherkin. Therefore, the aim of this work to evaluate germination in different levels of salinity of irrigation water. The study was carried out at the Seed Analysis Laboratory of the Department of Crop Science of the UFERSA, Mossoró, RN, between September and October 2007. The treatments were organized in a completely randomized design whit six levels of water salinity (0.00; -0.04 MPa; -0.08 MPa; -0.12 MPa; -0.16 MPa and -0.20 MPa) and four replications. Percentage of germination, speed of germination index and dry weight were evaluated. Results showed that the gradual reduction of the osmotic potential of substrate is harmful to seed germination of gherkin seeds. Osmotic potentials lower than -0.04 MPa were considered as critical.

The sweet potato stands out as one of the most important vegetables for Northeastern cookery, being source of energy and mineral salts. This work was driven with the objective of evaluating the propagation in vitro of you cultivars of sweet potato under different concentrations of BAP (6_Benzilaminopurina). The adopted statistical design was it entirely randomized, in factorial scheme 5 x 5, with 10 repetitions. The first factor consisted of 5 sweet potato cultivars (ESAM 1, ESAM 2, ESAM 3, California and Branca RJ) and the second of 5 concentrations of BAP (0.0; 1.25; 2.50; 3.75 and 5.0 ¿Mol L-1). You cultivate them appraised they answered the concentrations of the growth regulator distinctly. In all of the studied cultivars the presence of calluses was influenced by the concentrations of BAP.

This research was conducted to evaluate the physiological and sanity quality of melon (Cucumis melo L.) seeds used in agricultural region Assu-Baraúna-Mosssó in the Rio Grande do Norte. For seed lots each from the hybrids Goldex and Vereda were used. Research was conducted at the Seed Analysis Laboratory and Irrigation Agricultural of the Department of Crop Science of the UFERSA from August 2006 to July 2007. The physiological quality was evaluated by the germination, first count germination, accelerated aging, emergence speed index, electrical conductivity and seedling emergence, beyond the seed moisture content. The sanity was determinated by the method of filter paper with freezer, in four replications with 100 seeds per lot and completly randomized design. From the results obtained, it was concluded that first count germination, accelerated aging, electrical conductivity and seedling emergence tests only identified low and high seed lot from the hybrids Goldex and Vereda. The electrical conductivity test is most indicated to estimation of melon seed physiological potential, it was also possible to reduce the imbibition period of seeds prior this test. The pathogens associated with melon seeds were Aspergillus spp., Fusarium sp. and Macrophomina sp. and the physiological quality of seeds was not affected with the microrganisms presence.

The weed control procedures are known to affect the soil physical attributes and the nutrient amount taken up by weed roots. This work hypothesis is that weed control methods might also affect soil chemical attributes. Four experiments were carried out, three with maize (E-1, E-2 and E-3) and one with cotton (E-4), in randomized complete blocks design arranged in split-plots, with five replications. In E-1 experiment, the plots consisted of two weed control treatments: no-weed control and weed shovel-digging at 20 and 40 days after sowing; and the subplots consisted of six maize cultivars. In the three other experiments, the plots consisted of plant cultivars: four maize cultivars (E-2 and E-3) and four cotton cultivars (E-4). And, the subplots consisted of three weed control treatments: (1) no-weed control; (2) weed shovel-digging at 20 and 40 days after sowing; and (3) intercropping with cowpea (E-2) or Gliricidia sepium (Jacq.) Walp. (E-3 and E-4). In all experiments, after harvest, eight soil samples were collected from each subplot (0-20 cm depth) and composed in one sample. Soil chemical analysis results indicated that the weed control by shovel-digging or intercropping may increase or decrease some soil element concentrations and the alterations depend on the element and experiment considered. In E-2, the weed shovel-dug plots showed intermediate soil pH, lower S (sum of bases) values and higher soil P concentrations than the other plots. In E-4, soil K and Na concentrations in plots without weed control did not differ from plots with intercropping, and in both, K and Na values were higher than in weed shovel-dug plots. Maize and cotton cultivars did not affect soil chemical characteristics.