Abstract
The vegetable production sector is currently fronting several issues mainly connected to the increasing demand of high quality food produced in accordance with sustainable horticultural technologies. The application of biostimulants, particularly protein hydrolysates (PHs), might be favorable to optimize water and mineral uptake and plant utilization and to increase both production performance and quality feature of vegetable crops. The present study was carried out on celery plants grown in a tunnel to appraise the influence of two PHs, a plant-derived PH (P-PH), obtained from soy extract and an animal PH (A-PH), derived from hydrolyzed animal epithelium (waste from bovine tanneries) on yield, yield components (head height, root collar diameter, and number of stalks), mineral composition, nutritional and functional features, as well as the economic profitability of PHs applications. Fresh weight in A-PH and P-PH treated plants was 8.3% and 38.2% higher, respectively than in untreated control plants. However, no significant difference was found between A-PH treated plants and control plants in terms of fresh weight. Head height significantly increased by 5.5% and 16.3% in A-PH and P-PH treated plants, respectively compared with untreated control (p ≤ 0.05). N content was inferior in PHs treated plants than in untreated control. Conversely, K and Mg content was higher in A-PH and P-PH treated plants as compared to the untreated ones. Furthermore, A-PH and P-PH improved ascorbic acid content by 8.2% and 8.7%, respectively compared with the non-treated control (p ≤ 0.001). Our results confirmed, also, that PHs application is an eco-friendly technique to improve total phenolic content in celery plants. In support of this, our findings revealed that animal or plants PH applications increased total phenolics by 36.9% and 20.8%, respectively compared with untreated plants (p ≤ 0.001).
Highlights
Apium graveolens L. is a vegetable belonging to the Apiaceae family
P-protein hydrolysates (PHs) significantly affected head fresh weight; the highest values were recorded in plants treated with plant-derived PH (P-PH), followed by those from plants treated with animal PH (A-PH) and untreated plants
Our results showed that plants treated with P-PH performed better than plants treated with A-PH in terms of head fresh weight and nitrogen concentration
Summary
Apium graveolens L. is a vegetable belonging to the Apiaceae family. It originates from the Mediterranean area of Southern Europe and from the marshlands of Egypt and Sweden. Apium graveolens L. includes three cultivated taxonomic varieties: Celery Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, leaves or hypocotyl are edible and used as a vegetable, whereas its seeds are used for spicing and for medicinal purposes [3,4,5]. The leaves and stalks (petioles) are consumed mainly raw in salad or cooked in soups. Celery comprises different health promoting constituents such as, dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and amino acid tryptophan [3]. Some authors [6] found that celery contains compounds such as 3-n-butylphthalide and the related phathalide and sedanolide, which enhance the action of glutathione-s-transferase in the liver and in the small intestinal mucosa
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