EFFECT OF NANO-FERTILIZER ON GERMINATION OF BITTER ALMOND SEEDS

The use of large quantities of chemical fertilizers caused in many harmful to humans, animals and the environment. Adding to that, the difficulty of using nitrogen fertilizers especially urea and loss a large amount of it in sandy soil (70%) by leaching. In the other side, using of nano-particles and nanopowders, can produce controlled or delayed releasing fertilizers. This strategy could be reduced leaching of fertilizers as the release occurs gradually and continuously. Hence, this experiment conducted to study the effect of nano-fertilizer on seed germination and the first stages of bitter almond growth compared to other chemicals fertilizers. The nuts were soaked in distilled water for 48 hours. Subsequently, the seeds were sown in perlite and treated with different concentrations of nano-fertilizer, urea and ammonium sulfate at (0, 25, 50 and 100%) for each, then stratified at 6 ºC for 8 weeks. After cold stratification, nongerminated seeds were exposed to 22 ºC for three weeks to promote germination. Germinated seeds were sown in pots with a mixture of peat and perlite. The treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with 3 replicates and 25 seeds for each replicate. The results revealed that, nano-fertilizer at 50% affected significantly on seed germination and first stages of bitter almond growth and gave the highest parameters compared to other chemicals fertilizers under the study.