EFFECT OF CERTAIN NP-RATES AND APPLICATION METHODS OF BIOFERTILIZER (MICROBEIN) ON PRODUCTIVITY AND STORABILITY OF GARLIC

Abstract

Two field trials were conducted on garlic clone Sids-40, in the privet farm at Kafr meet Fares village, Dakahlia Governorate, during 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 seasons to study the effect of certain NP-rates (100%, 75% and 50% from recommended dose) either single and/or in combination with some application methods of biofertilizer (seed cloves inoculate, soil inoculate, seed cloves inoculate + soil inoculate and control treatment) on plant growth, yield and its components, as well as chemical constituents and storability of bulbs during the storage period (five months). The obtained results could be summarized as follows: In general, studied characteristics of the plants received the higher rates of NP-fertilizers better than those of low rate. Increasing the applied mineral NP-rate from 50% to 100% from recommended dose significantly increased all vegetative growth parameters, yield and its components, as well as N, P, K and volatile oils concentrations in cloves. Besides, the most interesting observation was the enhancing of storability by application NP at 100% rate followed by 75%. On the other hand, application of biofertilizer (microbein) had significant increases in plant height, number of leaves, shoot dry weight, bulbing ratio, total yield, bulb weight and diameter, clove weight, as well as Chemical constituents in cloves and decreasing bulb weight loss percentage during the storage period compared with the control treatment. The higher values of this parameters were obtained when used cloves inoculate + soil inoculate method. The combined treatments of NP-rates with biofertilizer application methods seemed to be more effective than the single ones. The best results were obtained by using 75% NP-rate from recommended dose/fed in the presence of microbein as (cloves inoculate + soil inoculate) method, the values were superior to those achieved by 100% NP-rate/fed without microbein. From the foregone it is evident that, application of biofertilizer microbein as a (cloves inoculate + soil inoculate) method for garlic plants rising their efficiency and reduce application rate of NP-fertilizers (about 25 % ), thereby reducing costs and environmental pollution problems. Therefore, this treatment could be recommended for raising garlic yield and improving bulb quality during the storage period under similar conditions to this work.