Response of caraway (Carum carvi L.) plant to bio-fertilizers in substitution of chemical fertilization

Abstract

The present work was performed on caraway plants during the two successive seasons of 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 at Baloza Research Station, North Sinai Governorate, Egypt to evaluate the effect of bio-fertilizer applications as partial replacement for chemical fertilization on vegetative growth, seeds yield, essential oil productivity and its main components as well as chemical constituents of caraway under Sinai conditions. Treatments were the combination of five fertilization levels (full recommended dose of NPK only, 75, 50, 25% of the recommended NPK plus bio-fertilizers and bio-fertilizers only). The results showed that application of T2 (75% of the recommended NPK plus bio-fertilizers) increased vegetative growth, yield, maximized essential oil percentage and yield compared to other treatments. However, the minimum values of vegetative growth, yield and essential oil productivity were obtained with plants treated by T5 (bio-fertilizers only). Finally, carvone and limonene were the main chemical constituents of essential oil for caraway.