Abstract:
Strong fishy odor and limited available nutrients have been the common concerns among
vegetable farmers which resulted to high refusal and low adoptability of Fish Amino Acid (FAA)
in Zamboanga City, Philippines. The reason why the conventional FAA was enriched and
deodorized or this is called the EDFAA. Three (3) plant-based materials such as guava (Psidium
guajava L.), talisay (Terminalia catappa) and Acapulco (Cassia alata) leaves were selected and
singly added in proportion to FAA and each were subjected for sensory evaluation by
participating vegetable farmers to determine the level of acceptability. Fish waste for the making
of FAA were collected from wet markets and canning factories. Scores were tabulated and
analyzed using the Hedonic and descriptive method, where EDFAA with Acapulco leaves
extract added with banana extract significantly emerged as the most acceptable EDFAA
attributed to its reduced strong-fishy odor. As a final product, EDFAA was tested to determine
the growth and yield performance of tomato crop applied in drench. This was carried out using
the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with seven (7) treatments replicated three (3)
times with six (6) subsamples per replication. Results showed, tomato crop was significantly
improved by the periodic drenching of 40% EDFAA in terms of the yield as compared to other
treatments. The application of EDFAA can be an alternative low-cost liquid fertilizer in drench
application and a good source of nutrients to various vegetable crops in urban agriculture. |
