Effects of Soil Quality Enhancement on Pollinator-Plant Interactions

Table 1

Effect of soil treatment on cucumber flower traits in field assays. Two-way choice in 2008 and 2009 included CF (potting soil plus Osmocote 14-14-14 at the label rate) and VC (potting soil plus 33% vermicompost) treatments. Four way choice field assays in 2010 included CF, VC, NF (potting soil without fertilizer), and VCEQ (potting soil plus slow release fertilizer with equivalent NPK as those provided by vermicompost) treatments. Values present means ± SE from 11, 14, and 8 replicates for each season, respectively. Means within rows followed by the same superscript letter are not significantly different (Tukey’s mean separation test, 𝑃>0.05).

Year	Response variable	CF	VC	NF	VCEQ
2008	Number flowers	9.6 ± 0.87^a	9.0 ± 0.41^a	NA	NA
	Flowering time (d)	30 ± 0.50^a	27.8 ± 0.52^b	NA	NA
	Flower weight (g)	0.2 ± 0.01^a	0.23 ± 0.00^b	NA	NA
2009	Number flowers	12.8 ± 1.44^a	12.8 ± 1.28^a	NA	NA
	Flowering time (d)	30.7 ± 0.22^a	29.4 ± 0.17^b	NA	NA
	Flower weight (g)	0.23 ± 0.01^a	0.25 ± 0.01^b	NA	NA
2010	Number flowers	9.8 ± 0.1.36^b	6.3 ± 0.41^a	4.6 ± 0.29^a	5.1 ± 0.33^a
	Flower time (d)	NA	NA	NA	NA
	Flower weight (g)	0.25 ± 0.01^b	0.32 ± 0.01^c	0.23 ± 0.01^ab	0.20 ± 0.01^a