IMPACT OF MINERAL, ORGANIC, AND BIO FERTILIZATION ON POTATO IN EGYPTIAN SANDY SOIL 1-PART 1: PLANT GROWTH AND PRODUCTIVITY

Abstract

Prices of mineral fertilizers are getting higher nowadays, so that this experiment was designed. In a private farm in the New Vally governorate, different fertilizer combinations; organic, bio and mineral sources were used in this study using potato (Cara cv.) in sandy soil in the two successive winter seasons of 2019/2020 and 2020/2021. Results showed that inoculating potato plants with Biofert (as a N-fixing bacteria) in the presence of ―half of the recommended doses of organic manures‖ (as Farmyard Manure, FYM + Poultry Manure, PM) gave the highest mean values of all studied growth (emergnce %, plant height, number of branches, fresh and dry weight of potato plant foliage) and yield characters (number of tuber/plant, total yield ton/fed, average weight of tuber g/plant and average weight of marketable tubers >45g (ton/fed)). The highest mean values of those characters were obtained from potato plants treated with the combination of FYM + PM + Biofert + 100% of NPK dose comparing with the control treatment. From the obtained results, it could be recommended that inoculating potato plants with the Biofert (as N-fixing bacteria) and Biopotass (as K-solubilizing bacteria) combined with compost (FYM) + (PM) and 75% of the recommended doses of mineral fertilization (NPK) is the best for potato production to get the highest economic yield of potato with the best qualities of marketable tubers