INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZER TYPE ON GROWTH AND QUALITY OF JUNIPER AND THUJA PLANTS WHEN GROWING IN CONTAINERS
Numerous studies are devoted to the application of fertilizers for vegetable crops literature has almost no sufficient and reliable information about the influence of these technology elements on the growth activity and quality of cultivated ornamental plants. This determined the need for scientific research when growing plants of various varieties of juniper and thuja occidentalis with a closed root system in C3 containers. The study was conducted during 2017-2019 on the testing ground of container production of ornamental crops on farm Novoukrainsky, Krymsky district, Krasnodar Territory. Plants were grown in C3 containers (3 liters volume). The experiment included the following varieties: Rocky Mountain juniper «Fisht», Juniperus x media «Mint Julep» and Thuja occidentalis «Kubanskiy izumrud» and «Kolumna» emerald. Plants from pot P9 (0.5 liters volume) were planted in container C3 and applied fertilizers Basacote (control) and nitroammofoska (NPK) at the rate of 3 g per 1 liter of substrate. The plant production cycle lasted from October 2019 to September 2020. It was found that when using Basacote fertilizers, all plants have 0,5-23,5 cm larger crown diameter, height - 5,3-20,3 cm, and stem diameter - 0,1-0.3 cm. When using nitroammofoska (NPK) there are 1,1-2,9 pcs more side branches per unit volume of the crown in the studied juniper varieties, Thuja occidentalis - 0,3-1,4 pcs per dm3.