Growth, Yield, Fruit Quality and Elemental Composition as Affected by Some Macronutrients Fertilization of ‘Florida Prince’ Peach Cultivar

Abstract

This study was carried out during the two successive seasons of both 2015 and 2016 on five years old ‘Florida prince’ trees (Prunus persica L.) budded on ‘Nemagard’ peach rootstock, grown in sandy soil under drip irrigation system in a private orchard located at El-Nubaria region, El-Behira Governorate, Egypt. The aims of this research was to investigate the effect of some macronutrients fertilization as ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3), Potassium sulphate (K2SO4), and Calcium sulphate (CaSO4) and their combinations on growth, yield, fruit quality and elemental composition of ‘Florida prince’ peach trees. The followed experimental design was randomized complete block design with five replicates. Results indicated that all fertilization treatments, significantly; increased vegetative growth (shoot length, shoot thickness and leaf area) characters as compared with the control plants during both seasons. Also, all treatments increased the yield (kg /tree) and fruit weight (g) as compared with the control plants. The highest yield and fruit weight were recorded with the combination of 560g NH4NO3 +280 g K2SO4+ 250 g CaSO4 application treatments (97.02 and 103.65 kg, each in turn) as compared with the control (36.61 and 40.00 kg, respectively). Moreover, all nitrogen, potassium and calcium fertilization treatments; increased length (cm), diameter (cm), firmness (Ib/inch2), total soluble solids (%), acidity (%), and total sugars (%) as compared with control ones during both seasons. On the other hand, A gradual elemental increases in nitrogen, potassium and calcium in leaf (%) were recorded with the macronutrients combinations as compared with the control plants.