Beneficial effects of minimizing nitrogen fertilization on fruiting of manfalouty pomegranate trees

Abstract EN

This study was carried out at the Experimental Orchard, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Egypt, to investigate the response of Manfalouty pomegranate trees for Azotin (bio-fertilizer) and Enciaben (slow release-N fertilizers) during 2013 and 2014 seasons.

The experiment was arranged in a complete randomized block design with six treatments and three replications, each one tree.

The results of this study showed that all studied fertilization treatments significantly increased the leaf area as well as percentage of N, P and K in leaves compared to use the recommended dose of nitrogen (RDN) as fast mineral nitrogen source only.

No significant differences on these traits due to use slow release-N fertilizer at any dose as well as 60% of RDN as two or three forms.

All studied fertilization treatments studied significant increasing the yield/tree and decrease the fruit splitting percentage compared to use (RDN) as fast mineral-N source only.

The maximum yield/tree and least fruit splitting percentage were recorded on the trees that fertilized by three different fertilization source (three forms).

Fertilization with the slow release dose, two forms (mineral plus bio) or three forms (mineral plus bio and slow release) significantly improved the fruit quality in terms of increasing the fruit weight, pulp % and total soluble solids % as well as sugar, vitamin C and anthocyanin contents and decreasing the total acidity and tannin content compared to use the RDN as release mineral-N source.

Hence, the cost wise evaluation of the application of these N sources is in favour of 60% RDN at either two, three forms or slow release-N.

It is evident from the obtained results that such fertilization programs are very important for the production of pomegranate fruits since it improves the fruit quality and packable yield and reduces the production costs and environmental pollution.