Response of Young Olive (Olea europaea L.) Trees cv. “K18” to Foliar Application with Promalin and Salicylic Acid Under Field Conditions

Abstract

This study was conducted in the olive orchard of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening, College of Agriculture, University of Anbar, Iraq for the period from April 2019 to December 2019 to investigate the influence of foliar application with Promalin and Salicylic acid in some vegetative growth traits and chemical content of young olive (Olea europaea L.) trees cv.“K18”, Where 72 young trees were selected at the age of five years, homogeneous in their growth as much as possible. The experiment included a foliar spraying with growth regulator of promalin at three concentrations: (0, 25 and 50) mlL-1 which is symbolized by (P0, P1 and P2) respectively and foliar spraying with salicylic acid at four levels: (0, 50, 100 and 200) mgL-1 which is symbolized by (S0, S1, S2 and S3) respectively. A factorial experiment was conducted with Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replicates for each treatment. The two factors of the study showed a significant effect in all of the studied growth traits especially the foliar application treatment of promalin with P2 concentration and the spraying with salicylic acid at a concentration of S3 where achieved a significant superiority in average number and length of new branches, average increase in the number of leaves, leaf area, the percentage of dry matter in leaves, percentage of carbohydrates in branches, leaves content of nitrogen as well as total chlorophyll compared to the control treatment which achieved the lowest values.