The effect of Bio and Nano Fertilizer on Growth and Yield of Basil Plant and its Content of Active Ingredients

A factorial experiment was conducted at the College of Education for Pure Sciences Ibn al-Haitham/University of Baghdad for the 2023 growing season to study the effect of the biofertilizer represented by the mycorrhizae vaccine and the NPK Nano fertilizer on some indicators of vegetative and root growth, yield, and volatile oil production of the basil plant, Ocimum basilicum L., the experiment included two factors. The first factor was mycorrhizae inoculum at 2 levels: 0 (no addition) and an addition of 25 g plant–1, as the seeds were inoculated upon planting. The second factor was spraying the plant’s shoots with NPK Nano fertilizer at four levels (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5) g l–1. The results showed a significant effect of the treatment of inoculating basil seeds with mycorrhizae at the level of 25 gm in giving them the highest values in plant height, which reached 51.17 cm plant–1, the number of leaves was 44.83 leaves per plant–1, the yield per hectare was 5.94 tons’ ha–1, and the percentage of volatile oil in the leaves was 1.319 %. In the interactions between the study factors, the treatment of mycorrhizae inoculum 25 g with Nano-fertilizer 1 gm l–1 was significantly superior, and the highest values were recorded in plant height, number of leaves, yield per hectare, and percentage of volatile oil in the leaves, as it reached 55.67 cm plant–1 and 49.33 leaves plant–1 and 6.83 tons’ ha–1 and 1.660 %, respectively, compared to the control treatment.