EFFECT OF MYCORRHIZAE AND DIFFERENT RATES OF NPK ON VEGETATIVE GROWTH AND YIELD OF TOMATO PLANT UNDER NORTH SINAI CONDITIONS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Plant Production Dept., Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt

2 Horticulture Dept., Fac. of Agric., Ain Shams Univ., P.O. Box 68, Hadyek Shoubra11241, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

The experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of mycorrhizae (Glomus sp. and Gigspora sp.) application on the vegetative growth and yield of tomato plants (Alisa cultivar), and its relevance to the mineral fertilizers requirements as NPK during the seasons of 2015/2016 and 2016/2017. The experiments were conducted at Baloza Research Station, Desert Research Center, North Sinai Governorate, Egypt. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with three replicates, every replicate included 4 treatments (75 and100% of the recommended mineral fertilizer only or combined with the mycorrhizae treatment). The results showed that mycorrhizae application significantly increased the vegetative growth characters of tomato plant such as plant height, number of shoots, number of leaves, stem diameter, fresh and dry weights and yield. There were no significant differences in the vegetative growth characteristics of tomato plants receiving 75% of mineral fertilizers in addition to mycorrhizae application as compared with plants receiving 100% of mineral fertilizers only, except for the fresh weight of plants. The plants were received 100% of the recommended mineral fertilizers combined with mycorrhizae treatment gave the highest values of vegetative growth characters and yield. Therefore, we recommended that, using of mycorrhizae could be affective to maximize the utilization of mineral fertilizers, in addition, the mycorrhizea is ecofriendly, economically and consid
ered as one of the most important bio-fertilizer resources.

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