Influence of Pigeon Manure Tea on some Physiological and Genetical Parameters of Sugar Beet

Abstract

Two field experiments were carried out in 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 seasons at Nubaria Research Station, El-Beheira Governorate, Egypt to study the response of three sugar beet cultivars to the foliar nutrition with pigeon manure tea (PMT) in combination with soil N fertilizer and its effect on yield, yield components, chemical constituents and some physiological and genetical parameters. A split plot arrangement in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications was used. Three polygerm sugar beet cultivars namely SN-626, NH-627 and Hercule were randomly distributed in the main plots, while the four combinations of PMT and N fertilizer were randomly distributed in the sub-plots, it was as follows; 80 kg N/fed (recommended level) was given as soil application, without PMT (check treatment) (C1), foliar application of 2.5% PMT + soil addition of 40 kg N/fed (C2), foliar application of 5% PMT + soil addition of 40 kg N/fed (C3) and foliar application of 10% PMT + soil addition of 40 kg N/fed (C4). The results illustrated that fertilizing the tested cultivars with (C4) treatment attained the highest mean of sugar yield compared with (C2) and/or (C3), in the two seasons. The three cultivars showed that the highest and the least values of root, top, sugar yields and sucrose% were produced from SN-626 and Hercule cultivar, respectively, in both seasons. Genotypic and phenotypic variances, heritability and coefficient of variance as percent of means were estimated for the studied traits. Maximum heritability values were obtained for root diameter followed by top yield. Meanwhile, it was moderate for sugar yield, sucrose% and root yield, while the minimum values of heritability were recorded by total soluble solids and purity percentages. Besides, different genetic coefficient of variance as percent of mean, as well as high genetic variability and high range of variations were detected. Path-coefficient analysis revealed that the improvement of different genotypes sugar yield can alter the relative importance of root yield, sucrose% and purity%. Under conditions of the present work, it can be recommended that growing SN-626 variety fertilized with (C4) treatment produced the highest sugar yield/fed with no significant difference from treating the same variety with C1 (recommended level). Also, the data suggest that significant improvement could be achieved by increasing purity as well as sucrose percentages to increase sugar yield.