Response of Feverfew Plant to Different Plant Residues Compost and Amino Acids

Abstract

Medicinal and aromatic plants are the forgotten wealth of Egypt, as the importance of expanding their cultivation comes after the increasing demand for them locally and globally, due to their economic importance and export revenue. So, a field experiment was implemented aiming at evaluating different plant residues compost as main plots [Sn - C: Snap bean compost (foliage), So-C : Soya bean compost (stover) and W-C : Wheat compost (straw), at a rate of 25.0 m 3 ha -1 for each source plus control treatment (without compost)] and various amino acids as sub-main plots [control (without), lysine (100 mg L -1 ), arginine (100 mg L -1 ) and proline (100 mg L -1 ) with the volume of 900 L ha -1 for each studied amino acid] on the performance of feverfew plant. The results show that the Sn -C treatment was superior for obtaining the best performance [ i.e., plant height, No. of branches, herb fresh and dry weights, flower fresh and dry weights, No. of flower plant -1 , essential oil, photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll and carotene) and chemical constituents (N, P, K)] followed by So-C treatment then W-C treatment, whilst control treatment came in the last order. Regarding the amino acids treatments, the results illustrate that the sequence order of amino acids for obtaining the best performance from top to less was proline, arginine, lysine and control treatment, respectively. Generally, it can be concluded that treating the soil with plant residues compost and simultaneously spraying the plants with amino acids will achieve improvement in the performance of medicinal and aromatic plants.