Influence of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, Seaweed Extract and Nano-Zinc Oxide Particles on Vegetative Growth, Yield and Clusters Quality of ‘Early Sweet’ Grapevines

Abstract

THE present investigation has been carried out for two consecutive seasons (2020 and 2021) on ‘Early Sweet’ grapevines in the experimental farm located at El-Baramon station, Horticulture Research Institute, Mansoura, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt in order to enhance the vegetative growth traits, nutritional status, yield, and cluster quality attributes by the applications of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, seaweed extract, and Nano-Zinc oxide particles individually or combined. The soil was inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi at 250 g inoculum/vine once during winter agricultural management and foliar spray with seaweed extract at 1% and Nano-Zinc oxide particles at 50 ppm at three times: after the bud burst stage, at fruit set stage and two weeks after fruit set stage. The results demonstrated that the used applications either individually or combined among them had a significant effect on all conducted traits compared to the control in both seasons. Also, the combined applications were the most effective than the individual applications, especially the triple application (arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi + seaweed extract + Nano-Zinc oxide particles) which significantly improved the vegetative growth aspects, leaf content of mineral elements, the weight of pruning wood, and cane content of total carbohydrates, as well as increasing yield and enhancing the quality attributes of clusters and berries especially the percentage of shot berries and the compactness coefficient of clusters. Therefore, it is recommended to apply this application for ‘Early Sweet’ grapevines vineyards.