Effects of Oak Leaf Extract, Biofertilizer, and Soil Containing Oak Leaf Powder on Tomato Growth and Biochemical Characteristics under Water Stress Conditions

Abstract

Drought stress is one of the most significant abiotic stresses on the sustainability of global agriculture. The finding of natural resources is essential for decreasing the need for artificial fertilizers and boosting plant growth and yield under water stress conditions. This study used a factorial experimental design to investigate the effects of oak leaf extract, biofertilizer, and soil containing oak leaf powder on the growth and biochemical parameters of four tomato genotypes under water stress throughout the pre-flowering and pre-fruiting stages of plant development. The experiment had two components. The first component represented the genotypes (two sensitive and two tolerant), while the second component represented the treatment group, which included irrigated plants (SW), untreated and stressed plants (SS), treated plants with oak leaf powder and stressed (SOS), treated plants with oak leaf powder and oak leaf extract and stressed (SOES), and treated plants with oak leaf powder and biofertilizers and stressed (SOBS). When compared with irrigated or control plants, drought stress under the treatments of SS, SOS, SOES, and SOBS conditions at two stages and their combination significantly lowered shoot length (12.95%), total fruit weight per plant (33.97%), relative water content (14.05%), and total chlorophyll content (26.30%). The reduction values for shoot length (17.58%), shoot fresh weight (22.08%), and total fruit weight per plant (42.61%) were significantly larger in two sensitive genotypes compared with tolerant genotypes, which recorded decreasing percentages of 8.36, 8.88, and 25.32% for shoot length, shoot fresh weight, and total fruit weight per plant, respectively. Root fresh weight and root dry weight of genotypes treated with SS, SOS, SOES, and SOBS, on the other hand, increased in comparison with control plants. Tomato fruits from stressed plants treated with SS, SOS, SOES, and SOBS had considerably higher levels of titratable acidity, ascorbic acid, and total phenolic compounds than irrigated plants during all stress stages. Under water stress conditions, the addition of oak leaf powder to soil, oak leaf extract, and biofertilizer improved the biochemical content of leaves in all genotypes. Furthermore, leaf lipid peroxidation was lower in plants treated with SOES and SOBS, and lower in the two tolerant genotypes than in the two susceptible genotypes. In conclusion, the application of SOS, SOES, and SOBS demonstrated a slight decrease in some morpho-physiological and fruit physicochemical traits compared with SS treatment. However, the application of oak leaf powder and oak leaf extract can be described as novel agricultural practices because they are low-cost, easy to use, time-consuming, and can meet the growing demands of the agricultural sector by providing environmentally sustainable techniques for enhancing plant resistance to abiotic stress. The usage of the combination of leaf crude extract, oak leaf powder, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus should be investigated further under stress conditions.