EFFECT OF SPRAYING WITH FOLIC ACID AND YEAST EXTRACT ON THE GROWTH, YIELD AND CALCIUM OXALATE CONCENTRATION OF SPINACH (SPINACIA OLERACEA L.)

Abstract

An experiment was conducted according to randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications during the winter growing season of 2019-2020 at the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening Design, College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad, Iraq, to investigate the response of spinach plants to different levels of exogenous application of Folic acid and yeast and their interactions in terms of growth, yield, and quality traits. The experiment included two factors the first was Folic acid (0,100 and150 mg.l-1) symbolized as F0, F1 and F2, respectively. The second factor was foliar spraying with three levels of yeast extract (0,5 and10 g/l) symbolized as Y0, Y1 and Y2, respectively. According to the results the outcome of the F2 treatment (150 mg. l-1) was a highly significant effect on all growth and yield traits. Also, Y1 (5 mg.l-1) showed better results for all of the same characteristics except dry matter %, where Y2 treatment (10 g.l-1) showed the highest value. Based on the results the F2Y1 treatment showed the best performance with a plant height of 46.47 cm, leaf width of 13.45 cm, number of leaves at 11.54 leaf.plant-1, leaf area of 147.35 cm2.plant-1, oxalate at 61.36 mg.100-1 fresh weight, yield per plot at 8.29 kg and total yield of 27.63 ton.ha-1, while F2Y2 treatment gave the highest percentage of dry matter 8.43% and the lowest percentage of nitrate 0.17%.