Document Type : Original Research Article
Authors
1
Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
2
Ornamental Plants and Landscape Gardening Research Department, Horticulture Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza, Egypt
Abstract
This study was carried out in the nursery of the Ornamental Plants and Landscape Gardening Res. Dept., Hort. Res. Inst., A.R.C., Giza, Egypt during 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 seasons to find out the response of Acalypha wilkesiana grown in different potting mixtures to different irrigation regimes. Five types of equal proportions potting mixtures (v:v) i.e. sand + peat moss (Mix. 1), sand + perlite (Mix. 2), sand + vermiculite (Mix. 3), sand + peat moss + perlite (Mix. 4) and sand + peat moss + vermiculite (Mix. 5), and 4 levels of irrigation water at 25, 50, 75 and 100% of pot water capacity, and their interaction, were applied in this study. Vegetative and root parameters as well as the leaves content of total chlorophyll, carotenoids, anthocyanin and the percentages of total carbohydrate, N, P and K were recorded. The obtained results showed that there was a great influence of the different potting mixtures particularly those containing peat moss on A. wilkesiana growth e.g. Mix. 5 resulted in the highest records of plant height, number of leaves, number of branches, leaf area, stem fresh weight, root dry weight and N% in the leaves. On the other hand, irrigation at 25% pot water capacity resulted in the lowest values of almost all studied characters, while, watering at 75% pot water capacity gave rise to the highest plant height, number of leaves, number of branches, leaf area, root length, stem fresh weight, dry weight of leaves, stem and root dry weights, total carbohydrate %, anthocyanin content and percentages of N, P and K. Regarding the interaction treatments, all potting mixtures recorded the highest values in most cases when combined with irrigation regime at 100 or 75% pot water capacity. From the above results and to obtain high quality Acalypha wilkesiana shrubs with reducing the amount of irrigation water by 25%, it is recommended to use the Mix. 5 (sand + peat moss + vermiculite) + irrigation at 75% pot water capacity.
Keywords
Main Subjects
)
View on SCiNiTO