Effect of soil solarization and bio-fertilization on strawberry production and pathogenic fungi under siwa oases conditions

Abstract EN

The present study was carried out during the two successive seasons of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 in the experimental station, desert research center at Siwa oasis, Marsa Matrouh Governorate to evaluate the effect of soil solarization and bio-fertilization on soil borne microorganisms, weed characters, growth, yield and quality of strawberry.

The experiment included two solarization treatments (solarize and non-solarize) and five bio-fertilizers treatments (Bio-fertilizers alone, bio-fertilizers + 0.25 mineral fertilizers, bio-fertilizers + 0.5 mineral fertilizers, bio-fertilizers + 0.75 mineral fertilizers as well as the traditional treatment as a control.

The results indicated that, soil solarization increased average soil temperature and eradicated most annual broad and narrowleaved weeds, increased microorganisms population and reduced rotted fruit caused by pythium or phytophthora as well as increasing of strawberry growth early yield and yield.

Traditional treatment produced the highest yield followed by bio-fertilizers treatments with 0.75, 0.50 and 0.25 percent of chemical fertilizers compared with bio-fertilzers alone.

On the other hand, bio- fertilizers produced the highest fruit quality and gave the lowest values of rotted fruits