The Impact Of Spraying Humic Acid And Gibberellic Acid On Growth, Yield And Chemical Constituents Of Calyces Of Hibiscus Sabdariffa L.

This experiment was conducted in-house during the summer growing season of 2014 in the Pharmacy College of Babylon University to study the impact of spraying humic acid (HA) at concentrations 0, 1.5 and 3 g/L, gibberellic acid (GA) at concentrations 0, 50 and 100 ppm and their interaction on some growth characteristics, plant yield and chemical constituents of calyces of Hibiscus sabdariffa L., The treatments were distributed on factorial experiments at Randomized Completely Block Design in three replicates. Means were compared according to the Least Significant Difference test (LSD) at a probability level of 0.05.

The results show that growth characteristics (number of leaves, plant height, number of branches, dry weight), yield components (number of fruits and dry yield of calyces) and chemical constituents of the calices were increased due to the HA spraying, and higher concentration were more effective than lower concentration. Also spraying of GA produced significant effects on growth characters and yield components, but the lower concentration of GA was more effective than the higher concentration on chemical constituents of calyces. While the interactions between HA and GA show that the combination treatment of 3 mg/L HA and 50 ppm GA gave the best results in growth characters, yield components and chemical constituents of calyces, such as cyanidin, delphinidin, mercytine, qurcitine, eugenol kampiferol, naringine, catchine, rutine, cuomaric acid, sabdartine, sabdartine, gossyptine, Gossypetrin and protocatchuic acid.