The impacts of silicon and salicylic acid amendments on yield and fruit quality of salinity stressed tomato plants

Abstract EN

Two pot experiments were conducted during the two successive seasons of 2015 and 2016 at the Experimental Farm; Faculty of Agriculture; Damanhour University.

The aim of this study was to monitor the alleviating effects of silicon (Si) as a soil application in concentrations of (0, 200and 400 mg kg-1 soil) and salicylic acid (SA) as a foliar application in concentrations of 0, 50 and 100 ppm in addition to their combinations on yield and fruit quality of tomato plants (cv.

El-Basha 1077) irrigated with saline water at different salinity levels (0, 4, 8 and 12 ds m-1 using NaCl).

The results of the two seasons revealed that the salinity treatments resulted in decreasing in the mean values of all yield traits.

However, the mean values of all fruit quality parameters, in both seasons.

Application of either Si or SA gave higher mean values for yield and its components as well as the quality traits, in both seasons.

Moreover, the results revealed that the combined treatment of Si at the rate of 400 mg kg-1 soil with SA (50 ppm) gave the best ameliorative effect for all the studied characters of tomato plants grown under the highest salinity level of 12 dsm-1, in both seasons.

The average increment percentages of such treatment over the control under the highest salinity level of both seasons were 121.98, 32.69, 42.71, 192.71, 22.35, 24.83, 39.17 and 66.50% for number of fruits plant-1, fresh fruit weight, dry fruit weight, fruits yield plant-1, fruits TSS, Acidity, vitamin C and lycopene contents, respectively.