EFFECT OF BUNCH BAGGING WITH DIFFERENT COLORS OF POLYETHYLENE AND GA3 SPRAY ON SOME PHYSICAL AND YIELD OF DATE PALM (PHOENIX DACTYLIFERA L.) FRUITS CV.BRAIM

Abstract

The study was conducted at Horticultural Research Station  affiliated  to the Ministry of  Agriculture / General Company for Horticulture, 45 km South of Baghdad  for the period  from March  2018 to September  2018  to investigate the effect of  bunch covering with different colors of polyethylene and gibberelline spray on some physical and yield of date palm fruits cv.Braim. the coverage treatments included four levels and included, (control) unbagged bunches, bunches covering with transparent perforated  polyethylene, bunches covering with perforated blue polyethylene and bunches covering with perforated black  polyethylene, on the other hand, spraying bunches with gibberelline included three concentration (control) spray bunch with distilled water, spray bunch with gibberelline 75mg.l^-1  and spray bunch with gibberelline 150mg.l^-1. A factorial experiment performed within Randomized Complete Block Design with three replicates. The results showed that coverage treatments with polyethylene significantly affected on most of  physical characteristics of fruits, perforated black  polyethylene achieved the highest value of the fruit length, fruit flesh weight, while it gave the highest value of the fruit diameter, fruit weight and fruit maturity rate, also, perforated blue polyethylene  and perforated black  polyethylene  resulted in an increase in the yield weight and  significantly reduced fruits drop rate in comparision with (control). GA3 spray was significantly affected in most of physical chracteristics, especially 150mg.l^-1 which led to an increase in fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit flesh weight, fruit weight and yield weight, while reduced the fruits drop and  fruit maturity rate in comparison with (control).