Effect of Pollinator, Number of Pollination Times and Organic Fertilizer on Leaf Mineral Content and Yield of Barhi Date Palm

Abstract

Abstract The experiment was conducted in 2022 in one of the date palm orchards of Barhi cultivar cultivated at Dawar palm station, Ministry of Agriculture / Horticultural Department, to study the effects of pollinator cultivar and decomposed organic fertilizer on yield and leaf mineral content of 54 drip-irrigated 7-year-old cultivar dates. A disease- and insect-free palm tree of consistent height and age, Factors of the study included adding two pollinator cultivars, Ghanaami Akhdar (P1) and local cultivar (P2), three times (N1), two (2 days after first pollination) (N2), and three times (3 days after first and 3 days after second) (N3). Decomposed organic fertilizer (sheep manure) was added in three levels (0, 20, and 40 kg.date-1), denoted by M0, M1, and M2. The factorial experiment in an RCBD employed 54 trees since treatments were reproduced three times (one date palm tree per experimental unit). The experimental results revealed that local cultivar pollinator (P2) enhanced fruit dry weight by 77.71% but did not affect leaf nitrogen, phosphor content, or fruit weight. Results revealed that pollination number did not substantially affect leaf nitrogen or phosphor content, but once (N1) showed considerable superiority in fruit dry weight of 78.10 % and fruit weight of 104.14 g. At 40 kg sheep dung, leaf nitrogen and phosphor increased considerably.date-1 (M2) had the maximum leaf nitrogen and phosphor content of 1.548% and 0.380 %, and fruit weight of 107.00 g. M1 had the highest fruit dry weight percentage of 78.95%. Triple interactions between study parameters strongly influenced all attributes.