EFFECT OF SOIL COVERING AND SPRAYING WITH PLANT EXTRACTS IN VEGETATIVE GROWTH PROPERTIES OF TOMATO

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out at the Experimental Station of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape, College of Agriculture, University of Diyala, in spring season 2016 to study the effect of three types of soil coverings (without coverage, black polyethylene coverage, and white cover), spraying with plant extracts, and consisted of five levels control (without spraying), spray with Blady grass, Nut grass, onion extract and Johnson grass extracts on the vegetative growth of the tomato plant, plant length, stem diameter, number of leaves, leave area and dry weight of the plant. Experiment was applied according to split-plot in the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replicates. The results were as follows: Soil coverage had a positive effect on all studied vegetative growth properties and the coverage of the soil with the black cover was significantly higher than the second type of cover and the comparison treatment which was not covered. The spraying of the plant extracts separately resulted a significant reduction in all studied vegetative growth properties as compared with control treatment (sprayed with distilled water). The spray treatment with Nut grass extract was characterized by increasing the reduction rate in the measured vegetative growth measurements from other extracts, followed by spraying with the extract of the Johnson grass, then spraying with the extract of the Blady grass and then spraying with the onion extract.