Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Vegetable

The present research was carried out to study the effect of bio-fertilizers and some sterilization treatments with adding organic manures and compost on weed control, growth, yield and fruit quality of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) under plastic house conditions in the winter of two successive seasons of 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 at Farm of Agricultural Research Station, Fac. Agri., Cairo University, Giza. These experiment included 10 treatments (2 bio-fertilization {u00D7} 5 sterilization treatments) that were laid out in a split- plot design. The two bio-fertilization treatments (1-without bio-fertilization, 2-with using bio-fertilization) were put in the main plots, while the sterilization treatments (1- soil solarization + addition of rabbit compost after solarization (T₁) 2-addition of rabbit manure + soil solarization (T₂) 3- addition of rabbit manure + metam sodium (T₃) 4- metam sodium application + addition of rabbit compost after metam application (T₄) 5- addition of rabbit compost + unweeded (non sterilized control) (T₅) were randomly distributed in the subplots. Results showed that bio-fertilizers significantly increased fresh weight of total weeds in the first season and annual grasses in the second season, 90 days after transplanting. Moreover, plant height in the first season, 30 days after transplanting and leaf area of fifth leaf in both seasons were significantly higher without using bio-fertilizers than with using bio-fertililizers. Also, using bio-fertilizers reduced total yield and marketable yield in both seasons, but the reduction was significant in the first season only. Generally results proved that using bio-fertilizers promoted some weeds and caused a negative effect on cucumber yield under these conditions. Regarding the effect of sterilization, treatments of metam T₃ and T₄ were superior in reduction of number and fresh weight of weeds, 30 and 90 DAT over the other treatments. Likewise treatments of metam significantly increased plant height and fruit TSS in the second season, 30 days after transplanting. All sterilization treatments gave a higher early, marketable and total yield than non-sterilized control. According to the results of this study it is recommended to use soil solarization for cucumber production under protected cultures conditions in soils have a high density of weed seeds

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