Effect of Soil Amendments on Growth, Seed Yield and NPK Content of Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) Grown in Clayey Soil

Abstract

The application of bio-fertilizers and organic fertilizer is considered a promising alternative for mineral fertilizers to decrease the production costs and environmental pollution with good yield. Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the benefits of rice straw compost, humic acid and effective microorganism alone or in combination as an alternative to mineral-N fertilizer on the growth, foliar NPK content and yield of the local variety of bottle gourd. The study was carried out at Barramoon experimental farm, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt, during the two summer seasons of 2012 and 2013. The experiment consisted of eight treatments of soil amendments and NPK fertilizers arranged in a complete randomized blocks design with three replicates. The study's treatments had significant effects on all studied traits in both seasons. The lowest values of these traits were recorded with the 75% recommended dose of NPK fertilizers with humic acid treatment. Whereas, the treatment of 75% recommended dose of NPK fertilizers in combination with rice straw compost, humic acid and effective microorganism had the highest values of foliage dry weight, number of leaves, stem length and number of fruits per plant as well as seeds weight per fruit, 100 seed weight and seed yield per plant and per hectare. So, this treatment could be recommended as an alternative method for bottle gourd fertilization. It might give the chance for increasing NPK-use efficiency and producing satisfactory and good seed yield with keeping the health and safety of human and environment.

Growth, Yield and Phytochemical Constituents of Arctium lappa L. in Response to Phosphorous and Potassium Fertilizers Application

“…Through literature search there is limited result on this finding, although potassium is required to promote vegetative growth and development by playing a major role in many physiological processes such as cell division and elongation [11], this study indicated that Arctium lappa requires relatively low potassium for optimum growth performance. This result is in contrast to the early study where the elevated application of potassium significantly(p<0.05) increased the yield of these growth parameters in different cultivated species [12,13].…”

Soil Temperature and Moisture Stress: Response of Some Selected Physico-chemical Properties of Soil Along with Practice of Plant and Microbes-derived Organic Fertilizers

“…The K contents in both trials were statistically identical with all the treatments except T 8 and T 15 treatments, where field temperature and saturated moisture condition of soil were practiced without the application of any organic amendments (Table 4). The observations of the present study have been coincided with those reported by prior investigators [18,24,25]. Only 2.61% of the total variation in K availability of soil in first trial and 35.11% of variation in second trial could be demonstrated by C/N ratios in both seasons ( Fig.…”

“…Soil OC content was increased with soil temperature rise. Almost similar aptitudes have also been reported by previous researchers [18,19,20]. Temperature rise may support high plant productivity and organic matter input to soil and consequently increases soil OC content [9].…”

Effect of Irrigation and Fertigation Levels on Soil Fertility and Yield of Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus Thunb.)

“…Further, the application of higher nutrient rates particularly nitrogen in F 1 might have produced residual acidity associated with N-fertilizers during the nitrification process. Similar results were also reported by Chaudhary et al [14] and Ibrahim et al [15]. The OC content of the soil in the present investigation ranged from 5.1 to 5.8 g kg -1 (Table 1).…”