The present work was carried out during 2021 and 2022 seasons at the Agricultural Research Station of Al-Marashda, Qena Governorate, Egypt to study the influence of composted sugarcane straw and endophytic fungi(EF) treatments on the growth parameters and chemical composition of Ficus sycomorus transplants in sandy soil. The field experiment was conducted in completely randomized design (CRD) in six treatments. The different 6 treatments were, sandy soil with 25% decomposed sugarcane straw(v/v), sandy soil with 50% decomposed sugarcane straw(v/v), sandy soil and EF, sandy soil with 25% decomposed sugarcane straw (v/v) and EF, sandy soil with 50% decomposed sugarcane straw (v/v) and EFas well as sandy soil alone. The obtained results evident that planting of F. sycomorus transplants in sandy soil mixed with 50% compost by volume with the addition of Chaetomium globosumas entophytic fungi resulted in the highest values of shoot length, stem diameter and the number of leaves compared to the other treatments in the 1 st and 2 nd seasons. Concerning the effects of the tested treatments on nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, phenolic and flavonoids contents in leaves, growing transplants with the mixture of 50% compost with the sandy soil(v/v) and EF addition followed by the mixture of 25% compost with sandy soil plus EF addition resulted in the highest values of these components.
Alley cropping is a sustainable agriculture approach that improves ecosystem services while also promoting biodiversity. The current study was conducted over two seasons, 2019/2020 and 2020/2021, to examine the impact of leucaena–turmeric alley cropping and organic compost addition as agroforestry systems on the growth, yield and characteristics of the turmeric crop. Alley cropping included four treatments: control (turmeric as sole crop), turmeric cultivated between leucaena trees pruned at 1 m height, leucaena trees pruned at 1.5 m height and unpruned leucaena trees. Meanwhile, organic compost rates were control (received recommended NPK) and 17 and 34 m3 ha−1. This study’s results showed that growing turmeric in between rows of unpruned leucaena resulted in maximum turmeric plant growth, production and characteristics. Minimum turmeric growth and yield parameters were recorded with plants grown between pruned leucaena at 1 m and those where the turmeric was the sole crop. In addition, compost addition at 34 m3 ha−1 led to maximum growth, yield and attributes of the turmeric crop. Compost addition and alley cropping were shown to be an effective and sustainable agro-ecological system for increasing turmeric output and quality. The study demonstrated the importance of selecting the appropriate crop–tree combination in this system and it was discovered that leguminous leucaena trees significantly contributed to improving fertility and nutrient availability, which in turn improved the growth characteristics of turmeric, particularly the leaf-area index and its nutrient content, which are beneficial to the characteristics of the rhizome yield and curcumin content.
A FIELD trial was conducted to assess the effect of humic acid concentrations (0, 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5 g/l) on growth, yield and volatile oil constituents of fennel sown on 15 th October, 1 st November and 15 th November during the two successive seasons of 2017/2018 and 2018/2019. The earliest date (15 th October) recorded the best results regarding all fennel growth, yield and fruit constituents of volatile oil yield. Foliar application of humic acid in high concentration (4.5 g/ml) showed significant impact on plant height, branch number/plant, stem diameter, number of umbels/plant, fruit yield/plant, total fruit yield/feddan, volatile oil percentage, volatile oil/plant and volatile oil/feddan during both seasons. Volatile oil of fruits collected from plants sown in mid-October induced the highest percentage of anethole (74.96 %) and the lowest percentage of estragole (15.37%) in comparison with the plants sown in the beginning and middle November. The higher concentration of humic acid increased the percentage of anethole comparing with other concentrations. The foliar application by humic acid in high concentration of fennel sown in mid-October seems to be the best combination for getting higher fruit yield and high quality of volatile oil.
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