Effect of nanofertilizers on cucumber plant growth, fruit, yield and it{u2019}s quality / Amany Farouk Radwan Abass ; Supervised Merghany Mohamed Merghany , Mohamed Mohamed Shahein , Mahmoud Ashour Abdelsamad

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

Using of mineral fertilizers has resulted in many serious environmental problems. Therefore, products obtained from different sources can be used. Nano fertilizers recently has been used in agriculture. This experiment was carried out in plastic green house, in the farm of Faculty of agriculture, Cairo university, Giza, Egypt during winter seasons of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 to determine the effects of nanofertilizer on cucumber growth and fruit yield. Different concentrations (3, 4.5, 6 and 9 ml)/ plant of liquid nano NPK were used. The mineral fertilizer was used as control. Nanofertilizers has been added 50 additives but mineral fertilizer were added 6 additives. The results showed that the nanofertilizer treatments significantly improved the growth and yield of cucumber compared with control treatment. All treatments of nanofirtilizer lead to increase plant height, number of leaves / plant, chlorophyll content, yield and NPK % in leaves and fruits. The treatment of 6 ml NPK increased the yield by 4.84% and 53.42% in the first and second seasons, respectively. When cold storage experiment was done, treatment of 6 ml NPK achived the lowest weight loss % and the highest value of general appearance at the end of storage periods (21 days at 5 {u0366} C compared to all other treatments. The treatment of Control NPK recorded the highest value of firmness, TSS and decay % after 21 days of storage at 5 {u0366} C. It can be concluded that nanofertilizer improved the plant growth, yield and fruit quality of cucumber and it can be used as an alternative to mineral fertilizers

Issued also as CD