Response of pear (Le Conte cv.)‎ trees grown in calcareous soil to trunk injection and foliar application of some micronutrients

Abstract EN

This study was conducted during the two successive seasons 2016 and 2017 on eleven years old Le Conte pear trees budded on (Pyrus betulaefolia) rootstock grown in a private orchard located at El-Hamam, Matrouh Governorate, Egypt to overcome micronutrients deficiency problems in calcareous soils .

A commercial mixture of 5% w/w Fe, 2.48% w/w Zn and 3.5% w/w Mn nutrients dissolved in water and chelated with EDTA were used in three application methods( i.e.

control, (SA)soil application 50g/tree, (FA) foliar application at 0.5, 0.75&1g/L and (TI) trunk injection at 0.5, 0.75 & 1g/L.

The application repeated three times a year (at beginning of growth season in “March”, at fruit maturity in “June” and after harvesting in “August”).

The obtained results revealed that all trunk injection and foliar application treatments were very effective in solving micronutrients deficiency problems than soil application thus stimulate growth parameters (leaf width, leaf length, leaf area and total chlorophyll) and leaf mineral contents.

The increase in the growth parameters and leaf mineral contents led to improve yield/ tree and fruit quality.

Generally, trunk injection (1g/L) was the best treatments which gave the highest growth parameters, leaf mineral contents, yield/ tree, fruit length, diameter, weight, volume, total sugar, TSS, and decreased total acidity in both studied seasons.