Effect of ascorbic acid on growth and chemical constituents of Monstera delicious under lead pollutant conditions

Abstract

Pots experiment was conducted during the two successive seasons of (2013 – 2014) and (2014 – 2015) in the green house of National Research Centre (NRC), Giza, Egypt. It intended to find out the effect of ascorbic acid application at three concentrations (0, 100 and 200 ppm) on growth and chemical constituents of Monstera delicious plants under four concentrations of lead (0, 25, 50 and 100 ppm). The results showed that the application of ascorbic acid at 200 ppm and lead at 25 ppm led to increase growth parameters (i. e. plant height, leaf area, neck leaf length, root length, number of leaves, stem diameter and fresh and dry weight of all plant organs. The same tendency was absorved regarding N, P, K and total carbohydrates compared with control plants. While, the plants treated with lead at 100 ppm gave the highest values of lead content of Monstera delicious plants.

          The data also indicated that the highest values of plant height, leaf area, neck leaf length, number of leaves, fresh and dry weight of leaves and stems were obtained from plants treated with ascorbic acid at 200 ppm combined with lead at 25 ppm. While, the combined treatment between ascorbic acid at 200 ppm + lead at 50 ppm led to significantly increase root length and stem diameter. Whilst, spraying with ascorbic acid at 200 ppm combined with unspraying lead gave significantly increase fresh and dry weight of roots. The highest increases in chemical constituents of Monstera delicious plants were obtained from plants treated with ascorbic acid at 200 ppm combined with lead at 25 ppm of N, P, K and total carbohydrates percentage, except lead content which gave the highest values when plants supplied ascorbic acid at 200 ppm combined with lead at 100 ppm.

Key words: Lead, Ascorbic acid, Monstera delicious, Pollutant