Role of Phosphates Fertilizers in Sustain Horticulture Production: Growth and Productivity of Vegetable Crops
Waleed Fouad Abobatta, Manal Abd Alla
Abstract
Phosphorus is one of the major nutrients that play a vital role in the whole plant stages.It is a limiting factor in the growth and productivity of different crops.Phosphorus uses in both synthetic and organic fertilizer forms.Vegetable plants absorb phosphorus as H 2 PO 4 .Phosphorus deficiency produces small and dark green leaves, reduces growth and delays fruit ripening, while, excessive phosphorus fertilizing reduced total soluble solids in fruits and affects fruit quality particularly delaying rind coloring.Under arid and semi-arid regions conditions different vegetable crops like potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, pepper and eggplants, suffering from phosphorus deficiency after a short time of application, which, inhibits the vegetative stage, reduce the productivity of various crops and delays fruit ripening.Therefore, preferable to use phosphorus as a part of fertigation processing which allows accurate timing and uniform distribution of fertilizers to provide adequate nutrient requirements for the crop and increase the efficiency of nutrient use.In addition using phosphate-solubilizing microorganisms such as mycorrhiza fungi increase phosphorus availability for various plants like tomatoes and potatoes, which required relatively high phosphorus.