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Abstract
1. INTRODUCTION
Faba bean (Vicia faba, L.) is the most important food legume, which has the potential to provide the Egyptian for food. The national faba bean area over last five years was 131,000 / ha. with an average productivity of 2.86 ton / ha. (Mabrouk and Zayed 2004). It is providing between 20-41% protein, B complex vitamins and minerals, so it is considered a good source of protein has been reported (Chavan et al. 1989).
Faba bean production in Egypt is still limited and fails to face the local increasing consumption of the crop. So increasing crop production is one of larget of the agricultural policy and can be achieved by both increasing the cultivated area and its productivity (Omar et al. 2002). To satisfy the notional requirement of that important legume, either the area could be increased or the high yielding cultivars should be grown. Since the cultivated area is limited in Egypt. Thus, the increase in yield could be the more effective way by a combination of improved varieties with recommended treatments such as plant densities and bio-mineral fertilization.
Plant population is considered to be an important factor for final seed yield / plant with a more extensive and well distributed root system could exploit a larger soil volume there by making more effective use of soil water and nutrients (El-Shazly and El-Rassas, 1989). Therefore faba bean growth yield as well as yield components were affected significantly by plant density (Selim and El-Seessy, 1991).
Phosphorus is the second most commonly soil limited nutrients elements after nitrogen. It is present in all the soils of the world in varying quantities, but is usually higher in areas of low moderate rain fall. This element is required to plants in quantities that and approximately one-tenth as great as there of nitrogen and potassium. The majority of agricultural soils contain large reserves of total phosphorus which partly has been accumulated as a consequences of regular application of phosphorus fertilizer and the amount of phosphorus available to plants is not necessarily well correlated with the total phosphorus content of the soil (Saad and Hammed, 1998 and Makail et al.2005b).
Plant nutrients are essential for plant life and yield, therefore biofertilization is very important for legumes as well as for faba bean because it supplies plants with a part of the requirements from essential nutrients, saves a great amount of mineral fertilizers and reduces environmental pollution and costs of crop production. Moreover, biofertilizers are not expensive compared to mineral ones. Faba bean seed or soil treatment with microbial inoculates such as specific Rhizobium strains could supply the plants with a part of nitrogen required during different growth stages and increase seed yield and its components as well as seed protein content (Monib et al. 1994). Mycorrhizal fungi and phosphate dissolving bacteria are considered as a biological fertilizers which have an important role in the solubility of phosphorus and enhancing. It’s absorption by plants (Koreish et al 2001).
The present investigation aimed to study the effect of plant density and biofertilization on the productivity and technological traits of some broad bean cultivars (Vicia faba, L.).