Some natural plant extracts and their impact on fruit set, yield and fruit quality of Barhee date palms

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of natural plant extracts on fruit set, yield, and quality of Barhee date palms under desert orchard conditions. The research was conducted over two consecutive seasons on ten-year-old palms located 63 kilometers along the Cairo–Alexandria desert road. Palms were sprayed three times with 3% moringa extract, 3% licorice extract, or 2% algae extract, applied three hours before pollination and again one and two months later, while untreated palms served as the control. The findings revealed that all treatments significantly improved fruit set percentage, yield, and fruit attributes compared with the control, with algae extract consistently producing the most favorable results. Specifically, the 2% algae treatment recorded the highest values for fruit set, fruit retention, bunch weight, and yield per palm, while also enhancing chemical properties such as total soluble solids, total sugars, and non-reducing sugars, as well as morphological traits including fruit weight, flesh weight, length, diameter, and form index. The practical implications of these results suggest that foliar application of algae extract can serve as an effective, natural biostimulant to improve both productivity and fruit quality in Barhee date palm cultivation, offering a sustainable alternative to synthetic inputs.