Agronomic and productive behavior of Button of gold (Tithonia diversifolia) at three cutting ages at the Mishilí Farm, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas.

Abstract

The button of gold (Tithonia diversifolia), is one of the most important forage resources in animal feed, and so the following research work aimed to evaluate the agronomic and productive behavior of the button of gold (Tithonia diversifolia) in three cutting ages study conducted at the Experimental Farm Mishilí belonging to the Instituto Superior Tecnológico Tsa'chila in the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, where different agronomic and productive variables were evaluated, establishing a field trial where 3 treatments corresponding to different cutting ages were applied: 50, 60 and 70 days, with 7 replications for each treatment. Agronomic parameters such as plant height, number of leaves/plant, leaf width, leaf length, stem thickness, root biomass production and aerial biomass production were recorded. The results showed significant differences in yield and agronomic characteristics in buttercup (Tithonia diversifolia). This suggests the importance of selecting the optimum cutting age to maximize production and improve the nutritional quality of buttercup (Tithonia diversifolia) as an agricultural resource, being the best for this case at 70 days, where the following results were obtained: plant length 292.57 cm, root length 47.43 cm, leaf width 19.89 cm, leaf length 28.40 cm.