Effect of shading and fertilization with iron and sulfur on some vegetative growth and leaves mineral content of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis.

Abstract

This study was conducted in a glass house, Dept of Hort. and Landscape, College of Agriculture, Univ. Anbar, during the 2021-2022 growing season, to investigate the influence of shading and fertilization on the growth and leaf mineral content of gardenia plants. This study included two factors: two levels of shading at 0 (S0), shading 50 % (S1) and four treatments of fertilizations, control (F0), chelated iron spray at 2 ml.L-1 (F1), addition of magnesium sulfate to pots at 7 gm.plant-1 (F2) and chelated iron spray at 2 ml.L-1 + addition of magnesium sulfate to pots at 7 gm.plant-1 (F3) and their interaction. Treatments were replicated three times at Split plots design (Shading is the main plot) in an RCBD. The number of plants used was 36 plants. The results showed that interaction treatment (S1F3) significantly increased the plant height by 6.517 cm, the highest increase in shoot length of 11.267 cm, and the number of 94.107 leaves.plant-1 , highest leaf area of 9437.463 cm2 , highest leaf nitrogen content of 1.877 % and highest leaf potassium content of 0.561 %, while lower values of these traits were in interaction treatment (S0F0). Keywords: iron, sulfur, vegetative growth, Gardenia jasminoides Ellis