Abstract
The research was carried out in the 2018
agricultural season in a field planted with pomegranate trees (French variety),
with the aim of determining the effect of foliar spraying with calcium in
reducing fruit cracking. We used for the experiment three treatments for
calcium concentrations (0, 1000, 2000 ppm) and four treatments for the number
of spraying times with calcium (0, 1, 2, and 3 times).The results showed that
all the treatment of foliar spraying with calcium was superior to the control
in most of the studied traits (early flowering and ripening time, increasing
the percentage of fruit-set, improving the quality and the quantity of the
production). Also, increasing the number of times spraying with calcium reduced
the percentage of fruit cracking, as the percentage of cracked fruits reached
73.96%, 26.49%, 19.81%, and 15.74% in treatments of 0, 1, 2, and 3 spraying
times respectively. Moreover, the increase in the spraying concentration
achieved a significant reduction in the percentage of cracked fruits, which
amounted to 21.23% and 18.24% in the treatments of concentrations A and B,
respectively.