Study of the effect of different Rates of calcium carbonate added to the soil in the growth of the "Golden Delicious" apple Seedling Rootstocks

Abstract

The research was conducted at the Lattakia University nursery and in the laboratories of the soil department at the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering during the years 2024 and 2025 to study the effect of adding different rates of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) in the growth of the "Golden Delicious" Apple seedling rootstocks. The experiment was carried out using a completely randomized design with four replications per treatment, and used five levels of calcium carbonate (S₁=10%), (S₂=15%), (S₃=20%), (S₄=25%), (S₅=30%) and (S₆=40%), totaling seven treatments (including the control). The research results showed that an increase in the percentage of calcium carbonate in the soil led to significant differences between the studied transactions among themselves on the one hand, and between them and the witness ,on the other hand in all the studied qualities, where the total vegetative growth decreased from (127.75cm) in the coefficient s₀ to (56.25cm) in the treatment S₆, the number of leaves from (S₀=97.75) to (S₆=49.25) leaves/planting, and the dry matter in the leaves from (S₀=52.54%)to (S₆=33.42%), the concentration of chlorophyll from (S₀=3.52) to (S₆=1.55) mg/g and magnesium in the leaves from (S₀=1.32%) to (S₆=0.24%), in contrast, the concentration of calcium in the leaves increased from (S₀=1%) to (S₆=2.4%).