ROLE OF THE Salicylic AND Ascorbic Acid ON THE
CONTROL OF GROWTH, FLOWERING AND YIELD OF GLOBE ARTICHOKE
BY
El-Zohiri, S.S.M
Potato and Vegetatively Propagated Vegetables Dep., Hort. Res., Inst, A.R.C.
ABSTRACT
Two field experiments were carried out at Kaha Vegetables Research Farm, Horticulture Research Institute, Agriculture Research Centre during the two successive seasons of 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 to investigate the effect of foliar application of salicylic Acid (SA), ascorbic acid (AA) at different concentrations 50 and/or 100 ppm of each on vegetative growth characters, early, mid and late yield as well as total yield and its quality, chemical constituents of produced heads of globe artichoke (Cynara scolymusL.) cv. Balady. Foliar application of salicylic or ascorbic acid generally had a positive effect on vegetative growth parameters expressed as plant height, leaves, and offshoots number /plant as well as leaf area (cm2) and dry matter percentage of leaves as compared with the control treatment. In this regard, spraying globe artichoke plants with salicylic acids at 100 ppm reflected the highest growth values during both seasons of study. However, the combination of salicylic and ascorbic acid each at the highest used concentration (100 ppm) did not reflect any significant effect on early head, mid and late yield compared with the control. Foliar spray of salicylic acid at 100 ppm gave the highest yield values followed by ascorbic acid at the same concentration while using salicylic at 100 ppm plus ascorbic acid at 100 ppm had no significant effect on average early yield, total yield as ton /fed., average head weight and heads fresh weight /plant compared with the control treatment. Application of salicylic and ascorbic acid, especially at 100 ppm resulted in the highest increments on early and total yield. Production protein and inuline percentage in heads were significantly increased due to increasing salicylic and ascorbic acid up to the highest used concentration (100 ppm) when used as foliar spray on leaves. On the other hand, crude fiber in head of globe artichoke was significantly increased in control treatment compared with the other tested treatments, while foliar spray of salicylic acid at 100 ppm gave the lowest values of crude fibers during both seasons of the study.
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Key words: Globe Artichoke, Salicylic, Ascorbic Acid, Foliar application, vegetative growth, yield and quality as well as protein, inulin and crude fibers.
INTRODUCTION
In flowering plants, the timing of the transition from the vegetative to the reproductive and to the final developmental senescence phase is of vital importance for the survive of flowering plants. Flowering is con-trolled by external and internal factors that are integrated in a complex gene regulatory net-work that ensures the expression of flowering genes, resulting in flower formation (Jack, 2004, Corbesier and Coupland, 2005).
Salicylic acid (SA) acts as a potential non- enzymatic antioxidant as well as a plant growth regulator, which plays an important role in regulating of number of plant physio-logical processes including photosynthesis El-Shraiy, (2004) reported that acetyl salicylic acid treatments promoted plant growth, plant height and number of leaves per potato plant. Also, Hegazi and El-Shraiy (2007) found that foliar application of salicylic acid generally had a positive effect on vegetative growth parameters (plant height, leaves number, shoots and roots fresh and dry weight) of common bean as compared to the control. Amutha et al. (2007) reported that foliar spray of salicylic acid at 0.1 % on sunflower significantly increased the head diameter over unsprayed ones. The application of salicylic acid, or acetyl salicylic acid or other analogues of SA, significantly increased yield and its components of maize (Shehata et al., 2001; Abdel-Wahed et al., 2006) and wheat plants (Shakirova et al., 2003; Iqbal and Ashraf, 2006). Furthermore, salicylic acid (SA) plays an important role in plant defense responses to pathogen attack. Previous studies have suggested that one of SA's mechanisms of action is the inhibition of catalase, resulting in elevated levels of H2O2, which activate defense related genes. It was demonstrated that SA also inhibited ascorbate peroxidase (APX), the other key enzyme for scavenging H2O2 (Jorg Durner and DaNIniel, 1995).
Ascorbic acid (AS) is currently considered to be regulate plant growth and development owing to its effects on cell division and differentiation. Moreover, the changes in the level of ascorbic acid in response to ionic stress might be important in the regulation of the ionic environment within the cell. Hanafy Ahmed (1996) on lettuce, Tarraf et al. (1999) on lemongrass they found that foliar application of Ascorbic acid (AS). had positive effects on growth parameters. Furthermore, the endogenous level of AA play a role in floral induction that it has recently been suggested to be important in the regulation of developmental senescence, while Golan-Goldhirsh et al. (1995) indicated that soybean plants treated with AS showed an increase in photosynthesis processes. Biacs et al. (1988) on tomato stated that sugar content was increased by foliar spray of AS. Singh et al. (2001) on Cassia augustifolia and Talaat (2003) on sweet pepper detected that AA. foliar application increased the content of macronutrients (N, P and K). Other investigators recorded similar the stimulatory effects of vitamin C on other plants, such as on potato (El-Banna et al., 2006), pepper (Shehata et al., 2002) and on pea plants (Helal et al., 2005).
The aim of this work was to study the influence of the exogenous SA or AS solution and their combination on the vegetative growth, early and total yield as well as chemical constituents of globe artichoke.
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