Document Type : Articles
Authors
Department of Horticulture & Landscape, College of Agriculture, Tikrit University, Tikrit, Iraq
Abstract
Strawberry plants have high nutritional requirements for their tiny size; therefore, many experiments are carried out to determine the types of fertilizer and their concentrations that improve vegetative growth, yield, and fruits quality of strawberry. This experiment was conducted in the greenhouse belonging to Horticulture and Landscape dept./ College of Agriculture/ Tikrit University/ Iraq, to determine the effect of compound fertilizer (NPK, 20:20:20) and Humic acid on some characteristics of leaves and fruits of Ruby gem strawberry cultivar. NPK fertilizer was added to the soil with three levels (0, 50 and 100 g m-2) and two times, the first before planting and the second was at the flowering stage. 100 ml per plant of humic acid solution was also added two times, the first, three days after planting and the second at the flowering stage, with three levels (0, 5 and 10 ml L-1). The treatments were arranged into Randomized complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replicates. The results obtained that, the NPK fertilizer, Humic acid and their interactions especially the higher levels of them encouraged the studied characteristics and increased significantly leaves area per plant (cm2), chlorophyll index (SPAD), number of fruits per plant, and TSS% and anthocyanin pigment concentration of fruit flesh. Meanwhile, the previous treatments decreased significantly titratable acidity of fruits. The more effective treatment was fertilizing the plants by 100 g of NPK plus 100 ml of humic acid solution of 10 ml L-1, that it may be recommended to enhance the growth and fruit traits of Ruby gem cultivated under this experiment environment.
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