Studying the possibility of cultivating pimpinella anisum l. plant under sinai conditions by using chemical fertilization and mycorrhiza

Abstract EN

Afield experiment was carried out at El-Maghara Research Station (North Central Sinai), Desert Research Center, during the two successive seasons of 2012 / 2013 and 2013/2014, to study the effect of biofertilization (mycorrhiza) and chemical fertilization on growth, fruit yield, essential oil and chemical composition of anise (Pimpinella anisum L.) plants.

This experiment had a split plot design with three replications, the main plots were the mycorrhiza at two levels (non-inoculated and inoculated), and the sub plots were the chemical fertilization (0, 50, 75 and 100 % of NPK), to be 100 % of chemical fertilization of NPK (200 kg /fed ammonium sulfate + 200 kg / fed calcium super phosphate + 100 kg/fed potassium sulfate, respectively).

Obtained data showed that, mycorrhiza application led to a significant increase in plant height, number of umbels / plant, fresh and dry weights/plant, fruit weight/plant, fruit yield / fed, N, P, K and total carbohydrates content.

Also, in most cases, using 50 or 75 % of the chemical fertilization of NPK achieved an increase in the same characters.

The interaction between mycorrhiza and chemical fertilization had a significant effect on all parameters, where the best results of fresh and dry weights/plant, N, K and total carbohydrates content could be achieved with treating the plants with mycorrhiza plus 50 % of chemical fertilization of NPK.

While, the highest fruit weight / plant, fruit yield/fed and phosphorus content were resulted from inoculated with mycorrhiza plus 75 % of chemical fertilization of NPK.

Meanwhile, the volatile oil composition, resulted from this treatment, was anethole (74.57 %), followed by estragole (7.80 %), cis-pseudoisoeugenyl-2-methylbutyrate (7.24 %) and longifolene (3.22 %).