Assessment of the Yield and Fruit Quality of Manfalouty and Higazy Pomegranate Cultivars under the Influence of Gibberellic Acid and Micronutrients

摘要

Background and Objective: Gibberellic acid (GA3) and micronutrients play an important role in many plant growth and development processes. In order to evaluate the yield and fruit quality of pomegranates, two representative cultivars (Manfalouty and Higazy) grown in heavy loam soil at the Experimental Orchard, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University during 2016 and 2017 growing seasons were treated by Foliar application of GA_3 and micronutrients separately or their combinations. Materials and Methods: The treatment categories were T, (GA_3 at 100 ppm), T_2 (compound mineral fertilizer "Fetrilon Combi 2" at 1000 ppm), T_3 (GA_3100 ppm+Fetrilon Combi 2" 1000 ppm) and T_4 (Control). Results: The results revealed that the treatments increased significantly the yield components and fruit quality and decreased fruit splitting percentage as compared to the control. The most elevated estimations yields were obtained from GA_3-(-micronutrients treatment, which led to 23.9 and 29.2% increments over the control one and decrement fruit splitting percentage of 55.3 and 67.2% less than the control one for the two successive seasons, respectively. Conclusion: Therefore, it is recommended to spray the pomegranate trees with the combination of-GA_3 and micronutrients twice, on the mid of June and a month later to improve the fruit quality.