Effects of zinc and manganese as foliar spray on pomegranate yield, fruit quality and leaf minerals

Abstract

Effects of foliar sprays of zinc and manganese sulfates on the fruit yield and quality as well as leaf nutrients concentration of pomegranate were studied during 2010 growing season in an orchard with a soil pH of 7.5 and EC of 5.2 (dS m -1 ). Zinc and manganese sulfates were applied two times at the rate of 0, 0.3 and 0.6 percent under a factorial design on the base of completely randomized blocks. Mn sprays had positive significant effects on the fruit yield, the aril/peel ratio, TSS, weight of 100 arils, juice content of arils, anthocyanin index, fruit diameter and leaf area. Zn effects were also significant for TSS, TSS/TA ratio, juice content of arils and leaf area. Foliar spray of Mn significantly increased Mn and N but decreased Zn and Cu concentrations in leaves. Foliar sprays of Zn significantly increased Zn but decreased Mn and P concentrations in the leaves. According to the results, the suitable combination of these two micronutrients for studied characters of pomegranate under prevailing conditions was foliar spray of 0.6% MnSO 4 and 0.3% ZnSO 4 .

Yield and Pomological Characteristics of Three Pomegranate (Punica granatum L) Cultivars: Wonderful, Acco and Herskovitz

“…Total soluble solid contents of the cultivars vary from 16.00 to 21.45. These findings are in accordance with the results of other works [15,19,20]. Among the studied cultivars, Wonderful has the TSS content of 21.45 followed by Acco (17.29) and Herskovitz (16.00).…”

“…The Acco and Herskovitz are early cultivars with smaller dimensions and less ripening period than Wonderful. The yield of three cultivars of 4 and 5 years old is found to be superior over the fruit yield of Malas e Torsh e Saveh (Iran cultivars; 8.10 kg/tree) [19]. It is observed that some orchards have recorded significant difference in fruit yield as reported here: 31.6 kg/tree for Wonderful, 31.4 kg/tree for Acco and 39.8 kg/tree for Herskovitz.…”

“…On the other hand, Bartual, et al, [22] reported that the average fruit of Wonderful cultivar is 324.86 g in Spain, which is significantly lower than the results of present study. A wide variation among the fruit mass of different pomegranate cultivars ranging from 103 g to 505 g were reported [14][15][16][18][19][20].…”

“…It is also important for the engineers to design equipment and processes for harvesting, handling, sorting, sizing, packing, storing and processing. Several researches [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] reported a great variation in pomological characteristics among the pomegranate cultivars. Moreover, no information is available for the pomegranate cultivars grown in Cyprus.…”

Role of Micronutrients (Fe, Zn, B, Cu, Mg, Mn and Mo) in Fruit Crops

“…However, maximum length (6.18 cm), diameter (5.46 cm) and volume (120.28 cc) of fruit was obtained with the foliar application of zinc sulphate (0.4%). Hasani et al, (2012) conducted an experiment on effects of foliar sprays of zinc on the fruit yield and quality in pomegranate. Zinc was applied twice at the rate of 0, 0.3 and 0.6 percent.…”