Agriculture & Food, Volume 3, 2015

Abstract: A research study was conducted to evaluate the effects of various container designs on growth and root deformation of Eucalyptus viminalis. Eucalyptus was selected for the study because of its ability to produce deep roots and its acceptability in landscaping industry of all Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The experiment was carried out over two years. In the first year, three-month-old bare root seedlings of E. viminalis were transplanted into three different containers, namely, Root trainers, spring rings and conventional containers. After a period of one-year growth, a subset of plants from each treatment lot was destructively harvested to determine the growth parameters, shoot, and dry mass weight and root deformation. At the beginning of the second year, the remaining plants in the containers were transplanted into open field to study the landscape performance of container-grown plants. For the plants grown in containers, there were no significant differences noticed on shoot characteristics among the containers. The poorest root architecture was observed in conventional pots; whereas, spring rings and root trainers reduced the percentage of deformed root mass. When the plants were transplanted to an arid landscape, plant height, and dry biomass did not significantly differ between the treatments. However, the plants grown in root trainers produced largest roots, well-distributed in the soil and detected less deformed roots than the other containers. The effect of the spring rings on plants grown in the landscape was obvious visually during research period in the short-term, but was not apparent from growth quantification. To obtain quality tree seedlings to support the horticultural industry, it is recommended to continue the application of R&D on container and plant relation.