A. Belakbir et al., EFFECTS OF BIOREGULATORS ON IRON AND MANGANESE CONCENTRATIONS IN LEAVES AND FRUITS OF PEPPER PLANTS, Journal of plant nutrition, 19(8-9), 1996, pp. 1269-1277
Different commercially available foliar bioregulators were applied to
pepper plants under greenhouse conditions in the southeast of Spain. T
he experimental design was divided into 36 plots, each one containing
14 plants. All treatments were replicated four times. Eight different
bioregulators were applied according to manufacturer's recommendations
. All plants were treated with uniform fertilization. We determined th
e concentrations of iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) in both leaf and frui
t tissues. Data show that there was a high correlation between leaf an
d fruit Mn levels, but not with Fe. No significant differences were ob
served within treatments for Fe level of leaf or fruit. The effect of
bioregulators in leaves was variable, whereas in fruits, gibberellic a
cid (GA(3)) (T-8) treatment lead to significantly higher levels of tot
al and soluble Mn. In spite of the presence of micronutrients in the p
roduct Fosfonutrem, plants treated with this bioregulator showed a dec
rease in total Fe and Mn concentration in fruits in comparison to frui
t of control plants.