This study was conducted at the Agricultural Research and Experiments Farm at the Faculty of
Agriculture, Benha University during the seasons (2018/2019& 2019/2020). The experiment was designed with
the objective of evaluating growth, yield and chemical content of Opuntia ficus-indica under three
fertilization rates of (NPK), which were (30:20:10, 60:40:20 and 90:60:30 kg/fed.) in addition to the control
(without fertilization), as well as three plant population densities 4200 plants/fed.(P1), 8400 plants/fed.(P2) and
16800 plants/fed.(P3). The third factor was cultivation trends of the cladodes (north to south & east to west)
and their different interactions. The experimental design was split-split plot where fertilization rates were in the
main plots and plant density in the sub plots, while the cultivation trends in the sub-sub. The obtained results
showed that all data of the vegetative growth, yield and chemical content responded well all the three levels
of fertilization and densities with the direction of cultivation of the cladodes from north to south in both
seasons under study. The increase in the studied characters was significant with the high level of fertilization,
which resulted in the highest productivity and high chemical content of plant cladodes and use them as
non-traditional fodder to reduce the gap in the shortage of animal feed. |
