EFFECT OF SOME GREEN PLANT MATERIALS AS SOIL ADDITIVES ON SOIL NUTRIENT AVAILABILITY, GROWTH, YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS OF FABA BEAN PLANTS

A pot experiment was conducted in the vegetation house of the programme “Micronutrients and Other Plant Nutrition Problems in Egypt” , National Research Centre with faba bean (Vicia faba, Giza 3) plants. The work aimed at studying the effect of different levels (in the rate of 100, 150 and 200 Kg/fed) of the different used dry plant materials (algae, water hyacinth and clover) as soil additives on plant nutrient uptake and their concentrations in the plant tissues as well as plant growth, yield and yield components. The obtained data showed that high positive correlations are found between increasing levels of the green materials and nutrients uptake, yield and 100 seed weight (gm). Nearly all additives of such materials increased macro- and micronutrients uptake and concentrations in the plant tissues. They consequently increased fresh weight, dry weight and plant height (cm) of the plants. Algae treatments were superior followed by water hyacinth, but clover treatments were less effective. Treatment of 200 Kg/fed gave the best results followed by the treatment 150 Kg/fed. Treatments with those materials led to average seed yield increases of 21 %, 23 % and 25 % over control with clover, water hyacinth and algae, respectively. The average weight (gm) of 100 seed increases over control reached 75.9 % with clover, 79 % with water hyacinth and 83 % with algae treatments. The study suggests that using of such available and cheap materials can partially substitute chemical fertilizers in order to increase yields and avoid more environmental pollution.