2019, Vol. 7, Issue 5, Part B

author(s)
Khaled Hammam, Alia Amer and Tahany Noreldein

abstract
Vetiver (Vetiveria zizanioides) is one of the promising plants as raw materials in perfumery industry but it has not been widely introduced in Egypt. Where irrigation and plant population density are important factors in plant growth, a field experiment was conducted at the Experimental Farm of South El-Tahrir, El- Behira governorate, Horticulture Research Institute during the two successive seasons of 2017 and 2018 to establish optimal irrigation rate and plant population densities for vetiver in sandy soils under drip irrigation system using split plot design with three replications. The treatments of three irrigation rates were I1= 1.2, I2= 1.0, and I3= 0.80 of evapotranspiration (ETo), and three plant population densities (D1= 25,000, D2= 38,000 and D3= 50,000 plants /fed), where irrigation treatments were assigned in the main plot and densities were assigned in the split plot. Results indicated that vetiver yield, yield components, and water use efficiency (WUE) increased with I2 and increasing plant population densities. Significant interaction effects between irrigation rate and plant population density were detected in both seasons for yield components, and WUE. The highest growth vegetative and yield parameters, plant height, number of tillers/plant, root length, fresh and dry weight/ plant and /fed. and WUE were obtained from plants irrigated with I1, while the highest values from root length and oil percentage were found in I2. The maximum proline value was obtained under I3. On the other hand, plant density at D2 resulted the highest value from number of tillers/plant, root length, fresh and dry weights per plant and oil percentage. High density at D3 gave the highest root length. While the highest value of proline came from D1 in both seasons.