EFFICACY OF ZINC FOLIAR APPLICATION FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES ON PRODUCTIVITY AND FRUIT QUALITY OF WONDERFUL POMEGRANATE TREES

Abstract

Nanoparticles (NPs), especially from micronutri-ents, are recently motivated for replacing their com-mon mineral counterparts. To evaluate their com-parative efficacy, this investigation was conducted to estimate the impact of foliar application of zinc through different sources on productivity, fruit qual-ity and improve marketable fruit of “Wonderful” pom-egranate trees. The field experiment was performed during two seasons (2017 and 2018) on seven - year old pomegranate trees “Wonderful” cv., culti-vated in a private “Hegazi” farm located at 57 km. from Cairo on the road to Alex., Egypt. Four sources of zinc named “Zinc Sulphate, Zinc mannitol com-plex, Bio-Nano zinc (Bio Zn NPs) and Zinc Oxide nanoparticle (ZnO NPs) with four rates from each other were sprayed twice (the first before one week from full bloom and the second after a month from the first). So the experiment included seventeen treatments in a sample study spread in a random-ized complete block design by five replicates. Re-sults explicated that the greatest significant values of fruit set% were recorded by Bio Nano Zinc (Bio Zn NPs) treatments especially (400 ppm Bio-Nano Zinc (Bio Zn NPs)). Spraying with (3000, 4000 ppm Zn mannitol complex) and (300, 400 ppm Bio-Nano Zinc (Bio Zn NPs)) showed significantly the greatest values of productivity, improves marketable fruits and fruit quality of “Wonderful” pomegranate trees. So it could be recommended by spraying “Wonder-ful” pomegranate trees by 3000 ppm Zinc mannitol complex or 300 ppm Bio-Nano zinc (Bio Zn NPs). Another important point is that the application of Bio Zn NPs fertilizer at around 10% from the commer-cial dose of zinc sulphate resulted in the same re-sults without any change in the productivity, further researches are needed to study a further low level of Zinc Oxide nanoparticle (ZnO NPs) below (100 ppm Zinc Oxide nanoparticle (ZnO NPs)) which may be improving yield and fruit quality.