The role of spraying copper and zinc on the growth and yield of Vicia faba L

Abstract

Abstract A field experiment was conducted in Al-Rumaitha district 25 km north of Al-Muthanna governorate in winter season 2017/2018 to study the effect of spraying with three concentrations of copper (0, 10, 20 ) mg Cu L−1, and three concentrations of zinc (0, 40, 80) mg Zn L−1 on the growth and yield of faba bean. The experiment was applied as a factorial experiment within randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. The results showed that copper spraying at concentration of 20 mg cu L−1 resulted in an increase in most growth and yield characteristics, giving the highest nitrogen content in plant leaves (35.07g.kg−1), chlorophyll content in leaves (35.22 SPAD), plant height (81.01 cm), the number of branches (6.78 branch. Plant−1) and increased components of the yield by percentage of number of pods reached to (41.12%), the number of seeds by the pods (24.23%), and the number of total seed yield by (46.16%). There were no significant differences between the treatment of spray and the loss of the weight of 100 seeds. The results showed significant increase of zinc concentrations in the spray solution, where the concentration exceeded 80 mg Zn L−1 in most studied traits such as content of nitrogen in plant leaves, leaf content of chlorophyll, plant height, the number of branches, and also some yield components, the pods were 15.32, the number of seeds by pods was 5.12, the total number of seeds was 4628 Kg−1, while the comparison treatment was higher in the weight of 100 seeds. The interaction between copper and zinc showed a significant effect on the content of nitrogen in plant leaves and leaf content of chlorophyll. The combination (20 mg Cu.L−1 × 80 mg Zn.L−1) showed the highest mean of 37.50 g. kg−1 and 37.17 SPAD for both respectively.