Effect of Mineral and Bio-NPK Soil application on Vegetative Growth, Flowering, Fruiting and Leaf Chemical Composition of Young Olive Trees.

The present study was carried out on one year -old trees of two olive cultivars, Coronaki as oil cultivar and Manzanillo olive as double purpose cv. (table and oil) in a private farm located at Western desert along Cairo, Alexandria Road (50 km from Cairo), Egypt and planted at 5 x 6 meter apart in sandy soil and irrigated with drip irrigation system, similar in growth vigour and received the common horticultural practices. Manzanillo olive trees exhibited significantly the highest values of both fruit set percentage and fruit drop percentage as well as sex expression while the opposite was found with Manzanillo olive trees during the two seasons of study. Concerning the specific effect of bio- NPK fertilizer treatments, obtained results revealed that all five bio- NPK fertilizer treatments significantly increase during the study. Data obtained regarding the interaction effect of (olive cultivar x bio- NPK soil fertilizer treatments) showed that the highest value of number of shoots/branch/meter, number of leaves per shoot, shoot length, shoot diameter, leaf area, leaf fresh and dry weights, number of inflorescence per shoot and number of flowers per inflorescence exhibited statistically the highest values by Coronaki olive trees fertilized with the treatment 6 (kotengin + Biofertilizer + K So ), while the lowest increase was found by Manzanillo olive trees fertilized with the treatment 2 (kotengin + (NH4)2 so at 150 g/tree + P2o5 at 150 g/tree + K2 So at 150 g/tree) soil applied treatment during the two season of study. Manzanillo leaves were the richest in chlorophyll A&B and the poorest in Carotenoids, while the reverse was true in Coronaki leaves during the two seasons of study. On the other side, Coronaki cultivar had the richest leaves and exceeded statistically the Manzanillo olive cultivar regarding leaf, N; P; K; Ca, Mg; Fe; Mn and Zn contents from one hand, but the poorest leaves of Cu content from the other hand. All measurements in vegetative growth, flowering and some fruiting properties, were significantly increased with all different bio-NPK fertilizer soil applied treatments during the two seasons, and treatment 6 (kotengin + Biofertilizer + K2So4) was the superior in this concern.