Improving Fruit quality of Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch) Cv. Albion under different levels of Arginine, Brassinolide and Seaweed Application

Abstract

The research was carried out in two distinct plastic greenhouses. The first location was at the University of Anbar, College of Agriculture first research station. The second location was in Heet city, Aldolab village during the growing season of 2022-2023, with the goal of investigating the effect of spraying with seaweed extract(2 and 4 ml L^-1), amino acid ^"arginine^" (100 and 200 mg L^-1), and growth regulator brassinolide (0.05 and 0.10 mg L^-1)on the quality of fruits of Albion strawberry plants under protected environment conditions. in addition to the control treatment of spraying with distilled water only for the three factors. A factorial experiment with three factors was conducted according to the randomized complete block design (RCBD). Spraying with seaweed extract, arginine and brassinolide had a significant effect on all the traits of the quality of the studied fruits, the concentrations of seaweed extract (4 ml L^-1), arginine (200 mg L^-1), and brassinolide (0.01 mg L^-1) contributed to the best results for the traits (percentage of total sugars, the ratio between sugars and acidity, total soluble solid, anthocyanin and ascorbic acid). The values were (7.34 and 6.59%, 6.83 and 6.64%, 7.11 and 6.35%), (20.61 and 14.60, 17.99 and 14.17, 18.66 and 13.39), (9.25 and 8.34%, 8.87 and 8.24%, 9.10 and 8.34%), (59.57 and 48.91 mg 100 g^-1, 53.81 and 43.02 mg 100 g^-1, 52.34 and 42.98 mg 100 g^-1), (50.95 and 57.73 mg 100 g^-1, 50.18 and 56.37 mg 100 g^-1, 50.39 and 55.96 mg 100 g^-1), for the two sites respectively. On the other hand, the above treatments led to lowering the ratios of total acidity in fruits at both sites were (0.38 and 0.48%, 0.40 and 0.49%, 0.40 and 0.51%), respectively.The interaction between the two and three factors had a significant effect on most of the studied traits depending on the type of trait studied.