Effect of irrigation intervals and shading on growth quality of beaucarnea recurvata plants

Abstract EN

The present study was carried-out at Antoniades Research Branch, Horticultural Research Institute, A.

R.

C.

Alexandria, Egypt, during the two successive seasons of 2017 and 2018.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different irrigation intervals and shading treatments ongrowth quality of Beaucarnea recurvata plants grown in mixture soil of sand and clay1: 1(v/v).

An experiment was established to test the effect of four irrigation intervals (7, 14, 21 and 28 days) and one irrigation level was used to keep the soil moisture at the field capacity of the mixture soil at 100% , in addition to three levels of shading (0, 30, and 60 % ).

Data showed that the lowest irrigation intervals (7days) had given the highest results, while shading (30% ) had given the highest effects on the vegetative growth and chemical constituents.

Regarding the interaction between effect of irrigation intervals and different shading treatments on the vegetative growth and chemical constituents, the results showed that the highest mean values in the number of leaves, leaves dry weights, leaves area, stem diameter, caudex diameter, stem dry weight, caudex dry weight, root length, root dry weight, carbohydrates, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium, were obtained in irrigation intervals (7 days) and shading (30% ).

While, the results showed that the greatest plant height and total chlorophylls, were obtained in irrigation intervals (7 days) and shading (60% ).

In addition, the highest proline content were obtained in irrigation intervals (28 days) and shading (0% ) and highest relative water content were obtained in irrigation intervals (28 days) and shading (60% ).