Effects of Foliar Selenium Spraying on Yield and Quality Characteristics of Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum graecum L.) at Different Plant Growth Stages

ABSTRACT

The study was conducted to determine the effects of foliar selenium spraying on the yield and quality characteristics of fenugreek in different plant growth stages. The experiment was established according to the split-split block experimental design. In the study, the main plots, sub-plots, and sub-sub plots consist of different plant growth stages (seedling, flowering, and seed formation periods), cultivars (Gürarslan, Çiftçi, and Berkem), and selenium doses (Control, 25, 50 and 75 g ha⁻¹), respectively. Applying selenium at different plant growth stages was a statistically significant effect on the number of pods and protein content in the first year and on the number of branches in the second year. According to different plant growth stages, the highest results for the number of pods per plant, protein content and number of branches per plant were obtained during the flowering period. Applied selenium doses were ineffective on all investigated plant parameters except for plant height and number of seeds per pod in the first year. The highest results in the plant height and the number of seeds per pod were obtained from 75 g ha⁻¹ selenium application and the control parcels, respectively. Biological yield and protein content were significant among cultivars only in the second year. The highest results in terms of biological yield and protein content were obtained in Gürarslan and Çiftçi cultivars. This study revealed that more studies are needed to determine the effects of selenium applications on medicinal and aromatic plants.

KEYWORDS:

• Fenugreek
• seed yield
• selenium
• Trigonella foenum-graecum

Acknowledgements

This study was prepared from the doctoral thesis of Nazire Gülşah KÜTÜK DİNÇEL. The Erciyes University Scientific Research Unit supported the study (Project code: FDK-2022-11615); we thank them for their support. We would like to thank the Proofreading & Editing Office of the Dean for Research at Erciyes University for copyediting and proofreading service for this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was produced from Nazire Gülşah KÜTÜK DİNÇEL’s doctoral thesis and was supported by the Erciyes University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit [project number: FDK-2022-11615].