SALICYLIC ACID POSITIVELY AFFECTED PLANT GROWTH, PHOTOSYNTHETIC LEAF PIGMENTS AND FRUIT YIELD OF SUMMER SQUASH (Cucurbita pepo L.) GROWN UNDER DIFFERENT N-LEVELS | ||||
| Journal of Plant Production | ||||
| Article 5, Volume 3, Issue 7, July 2012, Page 2123-2138 PDF (563.49 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jpp.2012.84872 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Authors | ||||
M. W. M. Elwan  ; R. S. A. El-Shatoury
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| Suez canal Univ., Fac. Agric., Dept. of Horticulture, Ismailia, Egypt | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Nitrogen (N) fertilization plays a central role for improving yield in different vegetable crops and high N assimilation is desired to produce higher fruit yield. Several studies showed that salicylic acid (SA) application increases plant growth and productivity, but no attempts have been made to investigate the interaction effects of SA and N-nutrition. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of different N-rates and SA concentrations, and their interaction on plant growth, photosynthetic pigments and fruit yield. Field experiments were carried out during two consecutive growing seasons under Egyptian conditions using different combinations of N and SA rates. Plant biomass and fruit yield were increased linearly in response to N addition from 0.0 to 90 kg/fed. in both years, however, this effect was true for photosynthetic pigments, especially chlorophyll a, b and total chlorophyll, in the second year of cultivation. Salicylic acid application showed mostly a significant increase in the previous traits under all N-rates. Carotenoids content in leaves was not affected significantly by N and SA in the first sampling date, however, in the second date it affected negatively by N fertilizer. The above mentioned results revealed a synergism between N fertilizer and SA application. This study showed that SA addition increased plant growth and yield mainly by increasing the N recovery from the soil. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Squash; nitrogen; salicylic acid; plant biomass; chlorophyll and fruit production | ||||
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