Frequent Foliar Sprayings of Salicylic Acid with Elevated Concentrations Enhance Growth, Yield and Fruit Quality of Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch. cv. Festival) Plants

Abstract

SALICYLIC ACID regulates several physiological and biochemical processes in plants. The previous studies on strawberry used salicylic acid with low concentrations varied from 0.5 mM to 2.0 mM which was sprayed once, twice or three times. The highest concentrations of salicylic acid with the maximum times of applications gave the highest values of growth and yield parameters. To study the effect of frequent foliar sprayings of salicylic acid with elevated concentrations (0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, or 7.0 mM) applied every 10 days during all the growth stages of strawberry cv. Festival plants, a field experiment was conducted during 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 seasons at the Experimental Farm of Horticulture Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Qalubia Governorate, Egypt. Compared with the watersprayed plants, salicylic acid spraying up to 5.0 mM had positive and significant effects on the vegetative growth parameters, leaf SPAD readings, leaf relative water content, leaf membrane stability index, leaf content of macronutrients, number of fruits/plant, early and total yields/plant, and fruit soluble solids content. Salicylic acid at 4.0 mM gave the highest significant values of the aforementioned parameters. Moreover, increasing salicylic acid concentrations significantly reduced nitrate content in the fruits. In addition, a comparative microscopic examination showed thatsalicylic acid at 4.0 mM increased the cellthickness of both upper and lower epidermis, and the thicknesses of palisade and spongy tissues. Salicylic acid spraying at 4.0 could offer an economic, rapid, applicable, and effective way for enhancing growth, yield and fruit quality of strawberry cv. Festival.

The use of osmoregulators and antioxidants to mitigate the adverse impacts of salinity stress in diploid and tetraploid potato genotypes (Solanum spp.)

“…On the other hand, SA and P treatments had a significant influence on the plantlets of all tested cultivars of tbr and accessions of chc under examined high stress level. All of the aforementioned is consistent with numerous studies that have been conducted in this regard [66,67]. SA performs a variety of important physiological mechanisms in plants, including increasing nutrient uptake and the level of chlorophyll and carotenoid pigments, modifying the activities of some enzymes, and preserving the cell membrane's integrity [27,28].…”

Effect of salicylic acid in two stages of application on wheat crop

“…cv. Festival) (Youssef et al, 2017) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) (Hayat et al, 2008) foliar application of SA Figure 2. SPAD index in wheat leaves evaluated at 14, 21, 28, and 35 days after the application of treatments.…”

Impact of Rhizosphere’s Thermal Change on the Development and Production of Hydroponically Grown Cucumber under Controlled Environment

“…In respect of effect of cropping periods, the amount of chlorophyll content in the leaves as expressed by SPAD values were significantly (p<0.05) higher in September-November (47.6) as compared to those in other two cropping periods (Table 1b). Youssef et al [28] found no significant effects of interaction between periods and the root-zone temperature (RZT) in chlorophyll contents. In respect to fruit number, cucumber plants of cooled RZT-22ºC and 25ºC produced more fruit number/ m 2 to the extent of 207 and 209 respectively that those at RZT-28ºC (186) and control (151) ( Table 1b).…”