Influence of Foliar Spray with Yeast Extract on Vegetative Growth, Yield of Fresh Herb, Anatomical Structure, Composition of Volatile Oil and Seed Yield Components of Basil Plant (Ocimum basilicum L.)
- Department of Agricultural Botany, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.
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In the present study the effect of foliar spray with different concentrations of yeast extract (2,4,8 and 12 g yeast extract/L.) on morphological characters of vegetative growth, yield of fresh herb, anatomical structure of vegetative organs, percentage and composition of volatile oil and seed yield components of Basil plant was observed. The obtained results revealed that foliar application with yeast extract (YE) at (2,4 and 8 g YE/L.) increased significantly all investigated morphological characters of vegetative growth and yield of fresh herb per Basil plant at full blooming stage without significant differences among the three mentioned concentrations. Anatomical studies indicated that spraying Basil plant with the most effective concentration (4g YE/L.) induced favourable enhancements in most of included tissues of the main stem and leaves especially in conducting tissues (phloem and xylem). Basil herb at full blooming stage yielded 0.6% volatile oil for control plants against 0.65% volatile oil for plants sprayed with 4 g YE/L. The volatile oil of control plants and that of treated plants shared 27 compounds. The main constituents are linalool, geranial and neral. Linalool comprised 32.69% of the volatile oil of control plants against 35.36% of the volatile oil of treated plants. All assigned concentrations of yeast extract showed no significant effect on specific weight of Basil seeds. Whereas, the first three used concentrations (2,4 and 8 g YE/L.) showed significant promotive effect on other investigated yield characters of Basil seeds. The maximum significant promotion was detected at 4g YE/L. which induced significant increases of 26.7, 20.5, 20.5, 52.6 and 51.9% for number of inflorescences/plant, number of fruits/inflorescence, number of nutlets (seeds)/ inflorescence, number of seeds/plant and yield of seeds/plant over those of the control; respectively.
[Mohamed A. Nassar, Mohamed U. El-Segai and Samah N. Azoz (2015); Influence of Foliar Spray with Yeast Extract on Vegetative Growth, Yield of Fresh Herb, Anatomical Structure, Composition of Volatile Oil and Seed Yield Components of Basil Plant (Ocimum basilicum L.) Int. J. of Adv. Res. 3 (Oct). 978-993] (ISSN 2320-5407). www.journalijar.com
