THE ROLE OF FOLIAR APPLICATION AND LIGHT INTENSITY ON THE FRESH AND DRY LEAVS YIELD OF PEPPERMINT

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in a research station affiliated to the College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences - University of Baghdad, from March to Juley 2021. The study's objective was to investigate the effect of foliar application of the urea, nano-amino acids, and yeast extract, under two different lighting intensities on the growth and yield of leaves. The experiment included two factors: the environment type, involving an open field (100% lighting) and 50% shadow (50% lighting). The second factor included foliar spray of the yeast extract 5 and 7.5 g L^-1, 1000 and 2000 mg L^-1 (as urea), and nano-amino acids 1 and 1.5 ml L^-1 with half the amount of nitrogen and the entire recommended amount of N, P, K and treatment (full amount of N,P,K fertilizers). The experiment was conducted using the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) according to the Nested system with three replicates. the results observed that cultivation under shade achieved a significant increase in plant height, number of branches, leaf area, and total chlorophyll (83.6 cm, 10.63 branch plant^-1 and 15.45 dm², 1.05 mg g^-1 respectively), while the result was reversed in The fresh and dry yield of the leaves reached the highest at 100% lighting (1902.6 and 877.6 kg ha^-1, respectively),the concentration of N,P,K leaves. Results showed that all foliar spray treatments increased significantly compared to the control. The highest significant increase was from the two spray treatments, urea of 2000mgN L^-1 and nano-amino acids of 1.5ml L^-1 at the shadow plants for the traits, the plant height, number of branches, leaf area, and total chlorophyll content, while in the open field environment, recorded the highest fresh and dry yield of leaves(2007.8, and 995.2; 1955.1 and 957.7 kg ha^-1 for the two treatments, respectively).