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Growth, yield, fruit quality and nutrient uptake of tissue culture-regenerated ‘Barhee’ date palms grown in a newly established orchard as affected by NPK fertigation.

Research Authors
Al-Qurashi A. D., Awad M. A. and Ismail S. M. 2015
Research Abstract

tA field experiment was conducted during 2013 and 2014 seasons to compare fertigation and conventionalsoil broadcast fertilization on growth, yield, fruit quality and nutrient uptake of tissue culture-regenerated‘Barhee’ date palm grown in sandy loam calcareous soil in a newly established orchard. In the conventionaltreatment (CT), the recommended dose (450 g N, 225 g P and 225 K g/tree) was applied as a soil broad-cast in three equal doses. In the fertigation treatments, the NPK fertilizers were injected with irrigationwater in 12 equal doses, (T2), (T3) and (T4), represent all NPK amounts of CT, 2/3 CT and 1/3 CT, respec-tively. The highest fertilization regime either applied as soil broadcast or as fertigation produced thehighest total yield per palm compared with other fertigation treatments. However, fruit physical qualityparameters were higher at T3 and T4 than other treatments. On the other hand, fruit biochemical qualitycharacteristics showed unspecific trend. Palm growth parameters, chlorophyll a, b, and total chlorophyllsconcentration as well as chlorophyll a/b ratio were not affected by the fertilization treatments. The CT andthe fertigation treatments T2 and T3 increased nitrogen availability without, however, a further increasein leaves, except for T2. At the end of the sixth growing season (third flowering season from transplan-ting), all the cultivated ‘Barhee’ palms were rapidly and strongly growing without any losses in all thetreatments. However, some flowering abnormalities were observed such as multiple carpels formation, arelatively low fruit set percentage and albinism that were lower in 2014 than 2013 season. In conclusion,fertilization is critical to increase yield of young tissue culture-regenerated palms which might have arelatively high nutrient demand.

Research Department
Research Journal
Scientia Horticulturae
Research Publisher
NULL
Research Rank
1
Research Vol
Vol. 184
Research Website
NULL
Research Year
2015
Research Pages
PP 114–122.