Production and evaluation of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare, Mill.) grown with natural fertilizers [electronic resource].

Includes references.

This work was carried out during 2006/2007, 2007/2008 seasons at faculty of agriculture, Kafrelsheikh university, Egypt to study the effect of some bio, organic and chemical fertilizers on the vegetative growth, seed yield, essential oil productivity, chemical composition and nutritive value of fennel (foeniculum vulgare, mill). Data showed that, plants fertilized with compost + biofertilzers combined with either yeast, amino acids, humic acid or seaweed extract gave results parallel with or surpassed the others which were fertilized with full dose of NPK in most cases for the determined parameters in the two seasons. The determined parameters were growth characters i.e. plant height, number of branches per plant, number of umbels per plant, umbels weight per plant and per fed and fresh and dry weights per plant; as well as seeds and essential oil characters i.e. weight of 100 seeds, seed yield per plant and per fed, essential oil percentage 2ld yield (per plant and fed) and N, P, K, chlorophyll a and b contents in plant herb. Compost+biofertilizer+yeast treatment gave the highest protein content among all biofertilization treatments. Furthermore, non significant difference was detected for essential oil percentage between NPK and compost+biofertilizer+yeast treatments in both seasons, so that it could be chosen for nutritional evaluation. Fertilization led to increasing of unsaturated fatty acids especially, oleic acid which decreasing saturated fatty acids. Compost+biofertilizer+yeast treatment had the highest level of unsaturated fatty acids followed by NPK. Transanethole, carvone, fenchone and methyl chavicol were identified as the highest main constituents level, which represented about 83.4, 86.1 and 84.7% of total constituents for control, NPK and compost+biofertilizer+yeast samples; respectively.

Summary in Arabic.

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