This investigation was conducted under open field
conditions at the Experimental Farm of Hort. Res. Inst., ARC, Giza,
Egypt during 2013 and 2014 seasons to find out the response of
seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum Swartz) grown in 40-cmdiameter
plastic pots filled with about 6 kg of an equal mixture of sand
and clay (1:1, v/v) to some natural activators, viz. super blue green
(SBG) at 3 ml/l, Ascobien at 1 g/l, BioHorm at 1 ml/l and to some
combinations of them when applied as a foliar spray, five times with
one month interval. The verdure of control plants was sprayed with the
tap water.
The results of such investigation have shown that all vegetative
growth traits were significantly improved over control in response to
either sole or combined treatments applied in this study. Among the
individual treatments, BioHorm at 1 ml/l was the best treatment,
followed by SBG at 3 ml/l and then 1 ml/l of Ascobien treatment. An
excessive improvement was obtained when combining the single
treatments, especially combining between the three used activators
(SBG at 3 ml/l + Ascobien at 1 g/l + BioHorm at 1 ml/l), as such
combination gave the utmost high means of vegetative growth
parameters at all in the two seasons. A similar trend to that of
vegetative growth was also observed as well regarding the content of
chlorophyll a, b, carotenoids, N, P, K, total soluble sugars and total
indoles in the leaves, but the opposite was the right concerning total
phenols content which was decreased by the various used treatments to
reach the minimum values by the combination of 3 ml/l SBG + 1 g/l
Ascobien + 1 ml/l BioHorm in the two seasons.
Hence, it is recommended to spray the verdure of seashore
paspalum turf with a combination of SBG (3 ml/l) + Ascobien (1 g/l) +
BioHorm (1 ml/l), five times with 1 month interval during the growth
stage to score the best growth performance and highest quality.