ABSTRACT
This study was carried out at the Department of Ornamental Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, in Egypt during the two successive seasons of 2015 and 2016. The experiment was designed using a complete randomized blocks design. Eco-friendly agriculture has its priority for safe products, so the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of bio fertilizers (Nitrobien and Phosphorien) at 1, 2 and 4 g/plant, compost and poultry manure at the rates of 5, 10 and 15 ton/ feddan (feddan= 4200 m2) as alternative to NPK (recommended dose), on growth and anatomical characters of Cymbopogon citratusplants. The results showed that the highest number of tillers per plant (49.07) and leaf area (83.99 cm2) obtained by the high rate of poultry treatment (15 ton/feddan) at the second cut in the second season. Thus the result obtained showed that the organic fertilizers had a better effect on total herb fresh and dry weights per plant than bio fertilizer treatments. The poultry manure at the rate of 10 ton/feddan resulted in the maximum total herb fresh yield with value 56.53 ton per feddan and total herb dry yield with value 16.94 ton per feddan, in the second season. The essential oil production per feddan at the first cut (in August) was more than at the second cut (in October) in both seasons. The highest oil yield per feddan was recorded in the second season by the poultry manure at the rate of 10 ton/feddan with values 82.26 and 51.85 l/feddan at the first and second cut, respectively. The anatomical study showed that the best thickness of the leaf sheath at the midrib region was due to treating the lemongrass plants by poultry at the rate of 10 ton/feddan. The increasing ratio was 16.7% compared to control. This treatment showed the best results in the total number of vascular bundles, in addition to the No. of large bundles and their dimensions. From these results, it could be recommended that poultry manure was the best treatment for lemongrass growth and getting highly clean yield.