Decreasing the Intensity of Date Bunch Wilt and Dry Disorder (DBWD) by Using Balanced Proportions of Nutrient Elements

There are more than 37,000 hectares of land cultivated with date palm in Hormozgan Province producing around 145,000 tons of date annually. Therefore, increasing date yield and quality can render positive effects, especially on farmers, income in the region. One of the most important agricultural practices is mineral nutrition and soil fertility management that can improve yield and fruit quality of date palm. This research was conducted for a duration of three years to study the effect of essential nutrients application on Date Bunch Wilt and Dry disordr (DBWD) which has caused large production reductions in recent years. Two palm groves of “Mordasang” cultivar were chosen as experimental sites. One was afflicted with DBWD and the other one healthy.Fertilizer treatments were applied on the basis of soil and leaf analysis as follows: 1- Control (with no use of fertilizers) 2- Addition of balanced amounts of macro-nutrients and 3-Addition of balanced amounts of macro as well as micro-nutrients. The experiment was arranged with a complete randomized block design of five replications. Maintenance operations consisted of pollination, weeding, disease and pest control. Such plant responses as fruit yield, bunch number and percentage of bunches afflicted by DBWD were determined and compared among treatments. There was no significant difference observed between bunch numbers per tree in the fertilizer treatments. Application of essential nutrient elements (treatments 2 and 3) resulted in a considerable increase in date yield and a decrease in dried bunches percentage.