EFFECTS OF NANO CARBON AND NITROGEN FERTILIZATION ON GROWTH, LEAF MINERAL CONTENT, YIELD AND FRUIT QUALITY OF FLAME SEEDLESS GRAPE

This investigation was carried out through two successive seasons (2014 and 2015) to investigate the effects of nano-carbon and nitrogen fertilization levels on growth, leaf mineral content, yield and fruit quality of 3 years old flame seedless grapevines, cultivated in a private orchard with loamy soil texture, at Gharbiya Governorate. Ten treatments were applied as a randomized complete block design with three replications. The result indicated that 80%N from recommended requirment+0.6% carbon nano tubes (CNTs) increased significantly leaf area, fresh and dry weight, total carbohydrate% and concentration of N, P, K, Mg, and Fe in leaves, weight of 100 berries,  and juice weight of 100 berries compared with control. Also results showed that yield of combined application of 80% conventional fertilizer of nitrogen and nano-carbon at 0.6%was equal to that with supplied 100% conventional fertilizer (control). This indicated that the utilization rate of nitrogen fertilizer was increased after combined application of nano-carbon, which can save the N fertilizer amounts in production practice

Green-Nano Manganese and Its Impact on the Growth, Yield, and Fruit Properties of Flame Seedless Grapes

The present work aimed to evaluate green-nano manganese produced at the Microbial Biotechnology Department, National Research Centre, Egypt, and assess its impact on the growth, yield, and fruit properties of grapevines. To this end, two experiments were conducted. The first was microbiological, where several incorporation strategies were utilized to enrich the yeast with manganese, as follows: (1) manganese was added to the liquid medium (non-growth phase), and (2) manganese was added after 24 h of incubation (growth phase). The results showed that the non-growth phase had a reduced possibility of medium contamination. The manganese concentration in the yeast cells was increased due to manganese sulfate in the medium. The manganese incorporation in yeast cells was 99.93% (1.205 × 105) higher than that of the medium at 0.0195 g/L of manganese. Although the concentration of manganese in the medium raised the optical density (OD) of the yeast cell biomass, manganese sulfate had no passive influence on it. The second experiment was horticultural, where Flame Seedless grapevines were sprayed with frozen and active fresh yeast enriched with manganese that resulted from the microbiological experiment. Grapevines were sprayed twice a year at 10 or 20 cm3/L, and the results were compared with those for the mineral and chelate forms. The results demonstrated that yeast extracts in both forms showed positive effects on grapevine. The most effective treatment with regard to growth, yield, and fruit properties was frozen yeast enriched with manganese at 20 cm3/L, which yielded 10.14 and 12.6 kg/vine, compared with the control, which recorded 3.7 and 5.6 kg/vine in the two seasons, respectively

Prolonging post-harvest quality and storage life of pomegranate wonderful as affected by Arabic gum and different edible coatings

Due to the rising interest in healthy products, super foods such as pomegranate have spread widely on the international market in recent years.  Several postharvest treatments have been applied in order to maintain the quality and extend shelf life of pomegranate arils. This study evaluated the effect of Arabic gum treatment as well as different edible coatings (Jojoba oil, Gelatin, Wheat Germ oil and Rosemary oil) on shelf life and fruit quality parameters of Wonderful pomegranate during cold storage at 5oC with 85-90% relative humidity for 45 days. Fruit characteristics, such as fruit weight, volume, firmness, and weight loss%, total juice weight and volume, total soluble solids, total acidity, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), total anthocyanin, total sugars % and total phenols were determined periodically along a storage period of 45 days. It is clear that, all fruit characteristics were positively affected by different edible coating treatments. Pomegranate fruits coated with rosemary oil at 2% in combination with Arabic gum at 10% effectively reduced weight loss%, maintained higher firmness, fruit weight, fruit volume, juice weight and juice volume.&nbsp