GROWTH, YIELD AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF CUCUMBER AS AFFECTED BY USING COMPOST TEA UNDER NUTRIENT FILM TECHNIQUE

In this study an experiment was carried out in plastic house of Soils and Water Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University) Nasr city, Cairo, Egypt) during successful autumn season of 2010.This study aims to investigate the possibility of using different sources of compost tea (extracted from both chicken manure and El-Obour compost) as organic nutrient supply for producing cucumber yield (Cucums sativus L.), cv. USHUAIA HYBRID (DP162) F1 comparing with inorganic Hoagland nutrient solution (control) under Nutrient Film Technique (NFT).The electrical conductivity of the all nutrient solutions was kept at 2.5 dS/m while pH was in the range of  5.5 and 6.5.
The highest vegetative growth parameters (plant height, number of leaves, chlorophyll reading, total fresh and dry weights) and total yield of cucumber plants were observed with inorganic nutrient solution followed by chicken compost tea followed by El-Obour compost tea. Concerning, fruits quality, the highest values of vitamin C content in the fruits were obtained with chicken compost tea followed by El-Obour compost tea and finally Hoagland nutrient solution whereas, titratable acidity in fruits did not reached to a significant level under different sources of solutions. On the contrary, applying Hoagland nutrient solution gave the highest values of nitrate content in cucumber fruits whereas, the lowest values of nitrate content were obtained with El-Obour compost tea followed by chicken compost tea . The highest values of calcium content, average fruit firmness and the lowest percentage of fruit weight lossafter harvesting were found with Hoagland nutrient solution, respectively. While, the lowest values of calcium content, average fruit firmness and the highest percentage of fruit weight loss after harvesting were found with El-obour compost tea followed by chicken compost tea, respectively.
This study suggested the possibility of using chicken compost tea and  El-obour compost tea as safe feeding sources of organic nutrient solutions under Nutrient Film Technique (NFT).The relatively reduction in the yield can be acceptable if we take into consideration the safe use of the fruits due to low content of nitrate and heavy metals and the high content of vitamin C as well as environmental safety to benefit from these residue.