AGGEZI AND KORONEIKI OLIVE TREES AS AFFECTED BY ORGANIC AND BIO – FERTILIZERS, CALCIUM CITRATE AND POTASSEINE

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Olive & Semi-Arid Zone Fruits Research Department, Horticulture Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

The present study was carried out in an olive orchard at 6th of October city, Giza Governorate, Egypt during 2002 and 2003 growing seasons on “Aggezi” and “Koroneiki” olive cultivars for table and oil purposes, respectively. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of organic farmyard manure (FYM), compost (COM) manure and biofertilizers (Bio) as the combination between phosphorene and nitrobeine, calcium citrate (Cac) and potasseine (K). Besides, the fertilization program adopted in the farm [N (750g/tree), P2O5 (600g/tree) & K2O (500g/tree)] was used as control. The results revealed that, the application of different aforemen-tioned treatments increased significantly shoot growth (length and diameter, number of leaves shoot and area/leaf) compared to the control in both cultivars (Aggezi and Koroneiki) during the two growing seasons. In this concern, the application of FYM+Cac influenced significantly shoot length & diameter, number of leaves/shoot and area/leaf of Koroneiki cv. and shoot diameter of Aggezi cv. Meantime the area /leaf of both cvs.increased when fertilized by FYM+COM+Cac. Whereas, the com-bination of FYM, COM, Cac, Bio, and K improved significantly blooming charac-teristics (number of flowers/inflorescence, inflorescence length and perfect flowers %) of Aggezi and Koroneiki olive cvs. However, number of fruits/shoot and yield of both cultivars increased significantly when treated by the combination of organic and biofertilizers, especially FYM+COM+Bio. Moreover, pulp/seed ratio was in-creased when treated with FYM+Bio (especially in 1st season). In addition, Koro-neiki cv. when provided with FYM+COM+Bio treatment produced the richest fruits in their oil content. Aggezi cv. trees when fertilized with the combination of organic manure & calcium, gave higher contents of chlorophyll (A), (B) & total chlorophyll, however, in Koroneiki cv. chlorophyll B didn't affect. Eventually, nutrient elements (NPK) contents didn't take a definite trend except for N which was affected signifi-cantly with the different combinations, while P & K in Aggezi leaves were influ-enced by FYM only. On the other hand, Koroneiki trees treated with COM+Bio had the highest leaf N content. Leaf P content was positively affected by FYM+Cac in 2002 and FYM+COM+Bio in 2003. Meantime, FYM+K followed by COM+Bio in-duced the highest stimulative effect on leaf K content.

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