Abstract
Eggplant is one of the most popular and vital vegetable crops in the world. Various plant bio-regulators have been used in different crops to increase uptake of nutrients thereby leading to improvement in growth, flowering, fruit quality, storability and yield. The scope of this study was to evaluate the effects of calcium lactate and salicylic acid foliar application on growth parameters, physiological characteristics and shelf-life of eggplant fruit. Obtained results showed that the highest applied concentrations of calcium lactate (4 mM or 0.8 g l-1) and salicylic acid (1.5 mM or 0.2 g l-1) foliar application led to the highest values of measured growth parameters and yield. Applying of calcium lactate and salicylic acid foliar treatments could increase tissue firmness and ascorbic acid content of fruits. Foliar application of calcium lactate 4 mM (0.8 g l-1) and salicylic acid 1 mM (0.13 g l-1) was the best treatment to decrease percentage of fruit decay. In conclusion, our results showed that foliar application of calcium lactate and salicylic acid can be useful and inexpensive treatment to improve growth parameters, physiological characteristics and post-harvest properties of eggplant fruit
Highlights
2 MATERIALS AND METHODSEggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is one of the most popular and vital vegetable crops in the world (Kaushik, 2019)
Similar stimulatory effects of salicylic acid (SA) and different types of calcium sources on different growth parameters were reported in tomato (Rab & Haq, 2012), strawberry (Kazemi, 2013a), cucumber (Kazemi, 2013b), cowpea (Mohamed & Basalah, 2015) and lettuce (Almeida et al, 2016; Khani et al, 2020)
According to Hepler (1994), the effects of different calcium sources on growth parameters of different crops can be related to the fact that calcium ions (Ca2+) appeared to participate in the regulation of different aspects of cell division
Summary
2 MATERIALS AND METHODSEggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is one of the most popular and vital vegetable crops in the world (Kaushik, 2019). Various plant bio-regulators have been used in different crops to increase uptake of nutrients thereby leading to improvement in growth, flowering, fruit quality, storability and yield (Ranjbar et al, 2017; Mustafavi et al, 2018; Ghahremani et al, 2020). The effect of postharvest calcium chloride (CC) and SA applications on shelf-life and quality attributes of kiwifruits were evaluated by Kazemi et al (2011). Results of this experiment showed that post-harvest SA and CC treatments prevented fruit softening and decreased mass loss of fruits. In the other experiment, the effect of pre-harvest CC application on post-harvest life and quality of peach fruits was studied. 0.5 %, 1.0 % and 1.5 % of CC solutions were sprayed on peach plants and CC 1.5 % resulted in maximum fruit firmness, sensory quality score and calcium content during the storage period
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