Effect of Some Biostimulants on the Vegetative Growth, Yield, Fruit Quality Attributes and Nutritional Status of Apple

Abstract

Although the application of chemical fertilizers to crops promotes plant growth and yield, their continuous use affects soil heath and creates environmental pollution. On the other hand, plant biostimulants improve nutrients absorption, plant growth, yield and produce quality and are environment-friendly. Therefore, an experiment was conducted during 2021-22 to evaluate the effect of some biostimulants on the performance of the apple cv. Anna, planted in a sandy loam soil at Marsa Matruh governorate, Egypt. Ninety trees were randomly selected and sprayed with 4 or 6% moringa leaf extract (MLE), 0.3 or 0.4% seaweed extract (SWE), 1000 or 2000 mg L−1 Fulvic acid (FA), 4% MLE + 0.3% SWE + 1000 mg L−1 FA (combination 1), or 6% MLE + 0.4% SWE + 2000 mg L−1 FA (combination 2) before flowering, during full bloom and one month later and compared with a control (untreated trees). The results demonstrated that spraying MLE, SWE or FA or their combinations positively improved the vegetative growth, fruit set %, fruit yield and fruit physical and chemical characteristics as well as leaf nutritional status. The positive effect of MLE, SWE and FA was increased in parallel to an increase in the used concentration of each one of them. The highest increments in the measured parameters were accompanied by the application of combination 2 over the other treatments.

Is the application of bioactive anti‐stress substances with a seaweed‐derived biostimulant effective under adequate growth conditions?

“…More specifically, the optimal dose for plant growth was 300 mL/hL, and Cytolan® was better than Cytolan® Stress for biomass enhancement, with increases of 35% for fresh biomass and 62% for dry biomass with respect to the data obtained in control plants (Table 1; Figure S1). Other studies also found an increase in biomass after the application of seaweed‐derived biostimulants in soybean, apple, tomato, and other species (Tandon and Dubey 2015; Ma et al 2022; Mosa et al 2022; El Khattabi et al 2023).…”

“…One of the beneficial effects of the application of algae extracts as a biostimulant is the exogenous supply of hormones that usually act by stimulating plant growth (Mosa et al 2022; El Khattabi et al 2023). The analysis of the hormonal profile is useful to explain the biostimulant effect of any compound or prototype applied to plants (Blázquez et al 2020).…”

“…One of the beneficial effects of the application of algae extracts as a biostimulant is the exogenous supply of hormones that usually act by stimulating plant growth (Mosa et al 2022;El Khattabi et al 2023).…”

“…Algae are generally considered an attractive biological material that provides a large number of direct and indirect benefits to the development of most crops (Ma et al 2022). Algae extracts have gained interest as biostimulants because of their biochemical profile as they usually contain a wide variety of bioactive compounds and signaling molecules such as cytokinins, auxins, gibberellins (GAs), abscisic acid (ABA), vitamins, amino acids (AAs), polysaccharides, and mineral nutrients (Mosa et al 2022; El Khattabi et al 2023).…”