Jacaranda decurrens Cham. ssp. symmetrifoliolata Farias & Proenca, commonly known as carobinha, is a medicinal plant which occurs in the Cerrado of Mato Grosso do Sul. The species is widely used in folk medicine as a blood purifying and for healing wounds of uterine and ovarian cancers, which leads to its extensive and predatory exploitation. As it is a newly identified species, studies on its adaptation ex situ are still rare. Thus, the objective of this experiment was to evaluate the early development and yield of the species cultivated ex situ using five different plant spacing within the ranks and applying semicomposed broiler litter in the plots. The experiment took place at the Garden of Medicinal Plants from the Federal University of Grande Dourados ( UFGD), between April 2006 and October 2007. Plant spacings were: 0.30, 0.35, 0.40, 0.45 and 0.50 m, with broiler litter applied at 10 ton ha-1 in plots. The 5x2 factorial trial was designed as randomized blocks, with 4.5 m² plot area and four replications each. The seedlings were obtained from seeds collected in a natural germoplasm bank of 40 plants, randomly distributed in an area of about 100 m² with typical Cerrado vegetation. During cultivation, the height of the plants was evaluated every 30 days from 150 to 480 days after transplanting (DAT). Plants were harvested at 480 DAT, when fresh and dry matter of shoots, roots, leaf area and length and diameter of the largest root were assessed. The maximum height (1.58 m) was reached at 471 DAT at 0.50 m spacing between plants when poultry litter was applied. The yield data were influenced significantly by the spacing, but not by the addition of the broiler litter. The yield per hectare of dry mass of leaves was not influenced by plant spacing, however maximum leaf area was also obtained at 0.50 m spacing. The highest values of dry mass of stems per hectare were obtained at 0.30 m between plants, as well as the largest diameters of root, xylopodium and stem and the maximum length of root and xylopodium was also observed under this plant spacing. Someway, the highest yields of dry mass of root (4.564 t ha-1) and xylopodium (2.102 t ha-1) occurred when used 0.30 m plant spacing. Based on these results, we concluded the species achieves higher yields when grown in 0.30 m plant spacing, independent of the addition of poultry litter.
Bignoniaceae; medicinal plant; native plant; organic residue
