| ABSTRACT Containerized ornamental plant production is facing several environmental challenges. One of them is to replace the widely used, but with questionable sustainability, peat based substrates and another is to avoid water contamination by chemicals leaching from the nursery. Therefore, as have been verified that petunia and pelargonium plants can be produced in peat-based growing media partially replaced by vermicompost (V) and biochar (B) without decreasing commercial quality, this study has focused on analyzing the leachate from a standard peat-based substrate as a control, used for producing these two ornamental species, and those from the same substrate to which different proportions in volume of V (10% and 20%) and B (4% and 12%) have been... |
