Effect of Organic Compost Tea and Humic Acid to Reduce Dose of NPK Fertigation of Banana Plants cv."Grand Nain"

THIS EXPERIMENT was carried out during two successive crop ……. cycles of 2013/2014 (first ratoon plant) and 2014/2015 (second ratoon plant) of Giant Cavendishi banana (Musa spp. AAA sub group) cv. Grand Nain, grown in sandy soil. The goal of this research is to study beneficial effect of compost tea (compost extract), which abstracted by 1.0 kg/10 L water or 2.0 kg/10 L water and humic acid ( 2.5 g/L water or 5 g/L water) single or incombination to reduce the doses of chemical fertigiation by 20% of the recommended rate NPK(N:640 , P2O5: 80 ,K2O: 800 g/plant/year)in nine equal doses and added at monthly from March to Nov. on the growth, yield and fruit quality of Grand Nain banana. The dose of both treatments(compost tea) was 9 liter/hole for each date and humic acid was 3liter /hole for each date, compared to standard treatment NPK fertigation 100% of the recommended rate (N: 800, P2O5: 100, K2O: 800 g/plant/year) as a control.
 
The results revealed that the plants receiving 80% NPK of the recommended rate plus compost tea (2.0 kg/10L water or 1.0 kg/10 L water) andthe combination with humic acid (2.5 g/L water or 5.0 g/L water) treatments showed an increases in the vegetative growth parameters (psedostem height, circumference and assimilation area compared with the standard treatment of NPK fertigation (100%). The highest values of yield and leaf contents of N and K were obtained from plants received (NPK fertigation 80% of the recommended rate pluscompost tea 2kg/10L and  humic acid 5 g/L) while, the lowest values were obtained with the plants received 80% NPK of the recommended rate only but had no significant effect on leaf P content. Organic compost tea(2kg/10 L/water) and humic acid (5 g/L water) was favorable for improving fruit quality in terms of increasing finger weight (119.00 & 124.00 g), total soluble solids % (22.21& 22.05 %), total sugars (18.47 & 18.16) compared with the other treatments. accordingto the obtained results, it can be concluded that using compost tea(2 kg/10 L water ) in combination with humic acid (5 g / L water ) reduce the recommended doses of the chemical fertilizers by 20%.