THE INFLUENCE OF SLOW RELEASE AND CONVENTIONAL NITROGEN FERTILIZERS ON PLANT GROWTH AND CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF Cymbopogon citratus Hort. GROWN IN SANDY SOIL

Aziz,, Eman E.; El-Ashry, S. M.

doi:10.21608/jpp.2002.254717

THE INFLUENCE OF SLOW RELEASE AND CONVENTIONAL NITROGEN FERTILIZERS ON PLANT GROWTH AND CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF Cymbopogon citratus Hort. GROWN IN SANDY SOIL

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Eman E. Aziz, ¹
S. M. El-Ashry ²

¹ Cultivation and Production of Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.

² Soils and Water Use Dept., National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.

10.21608/jpp.2002.254717

Abstract

In newly reclaimed sandy soil, green house experiments have been conducted in N.R.C. to evaluate the beneficial effect of coating soluble fertilizer (urea and ammonium nitrate) with insoluble materials (rock phosphate, pentonite and elemental sulpher) on growth and chemical constituents of Cymbopogon citratus. Results showed that the maximum values for plant height, no. of tillers, fresh and dry weights of herbage were obtained with rock phosphate coated urea, while the minimum values were recorded with uncoated nitrogen fertilizer and control.
The content of chlorophyll a, b, carotenoids, total carbohydrates, soluble sugars and phenolic compound were increased with slow release nitrogen fertilizer. The essential oil percent was the highest with rock phosphate coated urea which gave 48.28 and 61.54 % higher over uncoated urea in the first and second cut respectively. Variable effects (ascending or descending) were noticed in the content of some components of lemongrass oil as affected with slow release and conventional nitrogen fertilizers. The main compounds of lemongrass oil (neral, geranial and citronellol represented about 80 % of the essential oil. The application of sulphur and pentonite coated urea caused a depression in neral and geranial in the same time gave the greatest increase in citronellol and neryl acetate, Moreover the maximum relative concentration of myrcene (3.84 %), limonen (9.39 %) and linalool (4.46 %) were recorded from applied urea as rock phosphate coated urea compared with other treatments and control.
The macronutrients (N, P, K and S) and micronutrients (Fe and Zn) status were increased with slow release nitrogen fertilizer. It might be concluded that, the application of slow release nitrogen fertilizer had the beneficial effect for increasing plant growth and chemical constituents as compared with conventional nitrogen fertilizers, and the most effective treatment was urea coated with rock phosphate.

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