Boosting Fennel Plant yield and Components using Combination of Manure, Compost and Biofertilizers

Abstract

Field experiments were conducted during the two successive seasons of 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 to investigate the response of Fennel plants to manure, compost and biofertilizers. Thus, natural possible alternatives to highly soluble fertilizers had been used as manure and compost mixture with and without biofertilizers (two bacterial strains) inoculation on fennel plants yield, essential oil production and constituents in comparison with recommended dose of chemical fertilizers (NPK) as control. The results revealed that manure and compost mixture with biofertilizers gave significant increases over control plants in all growth and chemical parameters. Where, the maximum value of fruit yield was recorded for plants received manure+compost +biofertilizers treatment in both seasons. The combined treatment of manure + compost + biofertilizers significantly increased the essential oil percentage as compared with the other treatments .The highest content of anethole as well as fenchone was obtained from NPK treatment. On the other hand, limonene resulted from the manure+ compost +biofertilizers treatment was higher than control. Myrcene compound was increased with manure + compost treatment in comparison with control. The highest value of estragole resulted from control plants, while the lowest amount of this compound was recorded from the treatment with manure+ compost +biofertilizers.

Keywords

• biofertilizers, chemical fertilizers, compost, manure, essential oil, fennel.