The Role of Some Biostimulants in Improving the Productivity of Orange

Abstract

One of the environmental problems that affects negatively orange productivity is drought because it greatly minimizes the growth attributes, photosynthetic process, water uptake, percentage of fruit set, and productivity; meanwhile, it raises the rates of respiration and transpiration, as well as the premature and preharvest fruit drop percentages. In addition, drought creates osmotic stress, affects the relationship between plants and water, reduces the amount of water in shoots, and prevents plant cell development and expansion. It is very important to search for a solution to minimize the effect of drought stress; therefore, the present study has investigated the effect of the application of humic acid (HA) at 0, 1 and 2 kg per tree and spraying of seaweed extract (SWE) at 0.2, 0.3 and 4% in combination with moringa leaf extract (MLE) at 2, 4 and 6%, respectively, on the productivity, fruit quality and nutritional status of navel orange cv. Washington during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. The results proved that the application of the biostimulants individually or in combination significantly positively changed the vegetative growth, productivity, fruit quality parameters and leaf mineral content of macro- and micronutrients of the treated trees compared to untreated trees. The superior treatments which gave the best results were 2 kg HA + 0.4% SWE + 6% MLE followed by 2 kg HA + 0.3% SWE + 4% MLE over the rest of the applied treatments.