MANURE TEA AND AMINO ACIDS AS POTENTIAL ECONOMIC AND SAFE SUBSTITUTES FOR MINERAL AND ORGANIC FERTILIZATION AND THE EFFECT ON GROWTH, YIELD AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF FABA BEAN PLANTS.

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted on a calcareous soil at Abou massoud village (48 km south-west to Alexandria) to study the possibility of partial substitution of NPK fertilizer and/or chicken manure by foliar spray of manure tea or amino acids and their effect on soil organic matter and available macronutrients in soil as well as vegetative characters, photosynthetic pigments, macronutrients and protein content and faba bean yield and its components. Treatments included mineral fertilizers (MF) at the rate of 35, 65 and 100 % of the recommended dose of N, P and K (RDF) and chicken manure (CM) at the rate of 1 ton/fed (CM1) and 2 ton/fed (CM2) along with foliar spray by manure tea or amino acids (1000 mg/l). Results indicated that soil organic matter content significantly increased due to the application of the two rates of chicken manure. Available N, P and K in soil showed pronounced increase upon the application of MF and/or CM with a superiority for the treatment of 100 % RDF + CM2 over the other treatments. Vegetative growth characters, photosynthetic pigments, N, P, K and protein content in seeds as well as seed yield and yield components progressively increased with increasing the applied rates of MF and/or CM up to 100 % RDF and CM2 and the increase was more prominent under the mixture application of both types of fertilizers. Moreover, all the aforementioned parameters were highly significantly enhanced with the foliar spray of manure tea or amino acids. Treatments fertilized with MF and CM and sprayed with manure tea or amino acids simultaneously gave additional promoting effects on the above mentioned parameters compared to the treatments receiving the sole or mixture application of MF and CM. In spite of the treatment of full dose of NPK along with CM1 + manure tea or amino acids produced the highest faba bean yield (1350 kg/fed), the yield obtained by the treatment of 65 % NPK with manure tea (1164 kg/fed) or amino acids (1172 kg/fed) was higher than the yield recorded by the single application of 100 % RDF (1110 kg/fed), indication that the need for NPK fertilizers could be reduced to 65 % compared to 100% RDF and saving 35 % NPK fertilizers.