Authors
Hazem Sawalha
Lamya Shalabi
Anan Hussein and Nasser Sholi
Pages From
534
Pages To
547
ISSN
2410-3608
Journal Name
Syrian Journal of Agricultural Research – SJAR
Volume
6
Issue
2
Keywords
Limestone dust, Olive trees, Vegetable, Palestine.
Abstract

An experiment was carried out in 2011 to study the effect of limestone dust of quarries on agricultural crops of vegetables and olive trees. The effect of such dust on vegetables including tomato and pepper plants was studied in the open fields of the Arab American University of Jenin (AAUJ). In addition, the effect of such dust was studied on olive orchards nearby quarries in Qabatya region. The Two-Sample Test of Proportions (TSTP) was used as a statistical method to analyze data obtained from the studied regions. The results showed that plant exposure to dust causes drastic negative effect on leaf surface area and productivity for both vegetable crops and olive trees. Chlorophyll content and flowering percentages of pepper plants decreased with increasing the amount of dust. Furthermore, the results revealed that long-term exposure of olive trees to dust decreases oil productivity by 55.3-84.4% and minimizes the percentage of seed maturity and germination percentages.