Abstract

To evaluate the effect of amino acids foliar application and the use of iron nano-particles and chelate iron on quantitative and qualitative traits, a factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replications was performed at Natural Resource Research Institute of Damavand city in Iran in 2013. The first factor was amino acid (Botamisol 45%) in both the application and non-application levels and the second factor was iron fertilizer in five levels: the lack of iron fertilizer (control), the soil application of iron nano-particles, the foliar application of iron nano-particles, the soil application and the foliar application of iron nano-particles and the soil application the foliar application of iron chelate. The attributes included the performance of marketable tuber, harvest index, percentage of iron and protein, the number of tubers, and tubers average weight. The results of variance analysis showed that all the studied attributes in both amino acid and iron fertilizer factors (nano and chelate) were statistically significant at the 1% level. In addition, the results of mean comparison showed that the best result was obtained in the studied attributes at the levels of amino acids application than non-application. Among iron levels, the soil application and foliar application of iron nano-particles had the best results, so that the application of iron nano-particles (in both soil and foliar application methods) in this study had a better effect on the desired attributes than the application of iron chelate. The results of amino acids and iron fertilizer interaction in this study indicated that the application of amino acids, foliar application, and soil application of iron nano-particles had the best results in the studied attributes (the percentage of protein, the percentage of iron, the average weight of a single tuber and the economic yield).