Effect of biofertilization on growth, yield and essential oil for two cultivars of dill plants : Anethum graveolens, L. / Shaimaa Ibrahim Mohammed Elsayid ; Supervised Abdelghafour Awad Elsayed , Mona Ahmed Drwish , Aboelfetoh Mohamed Abdalla

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Ornamental Horticulture

This investigation aimed to study the effect of mineral fertilizer, organic fertilizer and biofertilizers on growth parameter, yield, essential oil production, chemical composition and fruit anatomy of two dill cultivars; (Balady and Dukat).The effect of seven fertilizers treatments (without fertilizers, 100% mineral fertilizers, 100% biofertilizers, 100% organic fertilizer, 50% organic fertilizer,100% organic fertilizer with biofertilizers and 50% organic fertilizer with biofertilizers) on both cultivars in the two seasons at different three stages. Resulted showed that dill cv. Dukat recorded highest values of plant height, number of leaves, root fresh weight, number of branches, number of umbelts per umbel, umbel diameter, fresh weight of herb and yield, pigments content, total carbohydrates, N and P contents at vegetative growth and flowering stages.Also, dill cv. Dukat essential oil contained the highest percentage of Ü-and Ý-phellandrene, p-cymene, dill ether and D-limonene at vegetative stage and highest percentage of D-limonene and Dihydrocarvone at dried ripe fruits stage. Dill cv. Balady recorded highest values of essential oil percentage at different three stages. Number of umbel, essential oil yield per plant and per fed., lower nitrate accumulation, K content, limonene dioxide, dihydrocarvone, dillapiol and carvone at vegetative growth, flowering and dried ripe fruits stages. Also, dill cv. Balady essential oil contained the highest percentage of dill ether and D-limonene at flowering stage, and gave the maximum value of fruit yield per plant and per feddan at dried ripe fruits stage.The best fertilizer treatments for vegetative yield production were 100% mineral fertilizers and 100% organic fertilizer with biofertilizer. Meanwhile, the best fertilizer treatments for fruit and oil yield production were 100% organic fertilizer and 100% mineral fertilizers.At the same time, dill plants which were received 100% organic fertilizers produced biggest completely fertile cremocarps and this consequently. Worthy to mention that cremocarps produced from dill cv. Balady are generally bigger in size than those produced from dill cv. Dukat

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