Improvement of the Pollination Technique in Date Palm | ||||
| Journal of Plant Production | ||||
| Article 18, Volume 8, Issue 2, February 2017, Page 307-314 PDF (239.53 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jpp.2017.39627 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
| El-Refaey F. A. El-Dengawy* | ||||
| Pomology Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Damietta University 34517, Damietta/Egypt | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| The present research was carried out during two successive seasons 2013 & 2014 for improving pollination technique of Hayany date palm cultivar grown in clay sandy soil of private orchard located at Om-Elreda region, Damietta Governorate, Egypt. Uniform 32 date palms 45 years old were divided to 8 groups. Each group was labeled and its female spathes were subjected to different pollination treatments during April of both two seasons. The tested pollination technique include traditional pollination (TP) by using 5 inverted male strands/female spathe (control) and dusting with pollen mixture (PM) at 5%, 10% and 20% alone or preceded by spraying stimulative solution of pollen germination (SSPG). Effects of pollination treatments on the growth characteristics of Aerjon, Fruit set%, fruit drop%, yield/palm and physical and chemical fruit qualities were determined.The obtained results proved that the most tested pollination treatments markedly improved the growth characteristics of Aerjon, fruit set%, yield/palm and fruit quality. Applying SSPG on female inflorescences before TP and dusting PM at 5%, 10% or 20% significantly increased the fruit set%, reduced fruit drop% and consequently increased yield/date palm comparing with TP. Moreover, these pollination techniques greatly resulted in enhancing the physical and chemical characteristics of fruit qualities that include increasing weight, size, flesh/seed ratio and their contents of total sugars and vitamin C as well as reducing titratable acidity percentage. From the present study, it could be recommended with using the combination of spraying SSPG and dusting 10% PM as an improved pollination technique. It saved the required pollen grains comparing with applying 20% PM and also produced high yield/ palm has the high physical and chemical qualities. The combination of mixing pollen grains with carrier and SSPG is useful in establishing mechanical pollination and getting an economical yield with good fruit quality as well as minimizing the cost of pollination process. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Hayany date palm; pollination; pollen germination; pollen mixture; fruit set and drop; yield; physical and chemical fruit quality; Aerjon growth | ||||
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