Effect of Soaking Tubers in Potassium Humate and Foliar Application of Nano-Calcium Fertilizer on some Growth Traits of Two Potato Cultivars

Abstract

In the spring of 2022, researchers from the University of Mosul’s Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry conducted an experiment on a vegetable field. In this experiment, we looked at three variables: first, the effects of two different potato cultivars (Montreal and EL-Beida). For the second part, we soaked potatoes in a solution of potassium humate with a concentration of (0, 0.5, 1 g L-1). Therefore, the experiment had 18 treatments (2 3 3), with the third factor being Nano-calcium fertilizer with three concentrations of (0, 1.5, and 2.5 g L-1) applied to plants at three stages of plant growth: the first 20 days after full germination, the second and third stages, with a 20-day interval between addition and another. Cultivars were positioned in the primary plots, with the interaction between two additional variables located in sub-plots, as part of a factorial experiment inside a split-plot utilizing the Randomized Complete Block Design with three repetitions. Duncan’s multiple range test for comparing means was used to analyze the data at a 5% significance level. This leads to the following conclusion: Of the cultivars tested, the Montreal variety performed best when soaked in potassium humate at two different concentrations, increasing both leaf area and dry matter percentage in the vegetative development (0.5 and 1). both total chlorophyll content and leaf area were significantly increased by g.L-1. The best statistically significant data for plant height, number of aerial stems, and leafy area were obtained after spraying calcium Nano-fertilizer at two doses.