EFFECT OF COMPOST AND SOME NATURAL GROWTH PROMOTING ON CHAMOMILE

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

1 Horticulture Department, Fac. of Agric., Minia Univ. Egypt

2 Horticulture Department, Fac. of Agric. and Nat. Resources, Aswan Univ., Egypt

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out during the two successive growing seasons of 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 at the Nursery of Ornamental Plants, Faculty of Agriculture, Minia University to study the effect of compost (0.0, 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5 ton/fed) and foliar spray with ascorbic and salicylic acids, each at 50, 100 and 200 ppm, on growth, productivity of flowers and essential oil of chamomile(Matricaria chamomilla, L.) plants. Results indicated that vegetative growth traits (plant height and number of branches/plant), flowers fresh and dry weights/plant, essential oil (%) and yield/plant as well as photosynthetic pigments were significantly improved as a result of applied compost at the three levels with the highest values were obtained with 7.5 ton/fed treatment. Also, all concentrations of ascorbic and salicylic acids led to significant increases in all previous characters of vegetative growth, flowers and essential oil productivity compared to control. The combination treatment of compost (7.5 ton/fed) with salicylic acid (200 ppm) was superior than the other interaction treatments.

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