Abstract
This experiment was carried out in Mosul city, Nineveh Governorate, between February and September 2004 , to investigate the effect of shading percentage, micronutrient and GA3 on vegetative and root growth of Indian rubber plant, Ficus elastica Roxb. decora plants produced by vegetative propagation. Hence, three different factors were investigated shading at 35 and 70% from natural light, sprying with gibberellic acid (GA3) at 0, 100, 200 and 300 mg/ Liter were applied every 21 days, two times as foliar spray and micronutrient at 0, 1 and 2 dosage/ week/ pot. The Factorial Experiment was conducted by using the Split-plot in Randomized Complete Block Design. Each treatment was replicated three times. The results can be summarized as follows: There were no significant differences between the results of all characters which were obtained from two shading percentage except the leaf area which were significantly increased at 70% shading percentage, while root dry weight percentage was decreased. Spraying plant with 300 mg GA3/ Liter significantly increased plant length and leaf number, while leaf area decreased significantly when GA3 concentrations were increased. Fertilization with micronutrient at 2 dosages/ week gave a significant increase in plant height, internodes' length and root diameter, but root dry weight percent increased significantly when fertilized with one dosage weekly. In general, the interaction of 70 % shading , 2 dosages of micronutrient weekly and 300 mg GA3/ Liter gave significantly best results of many characters.
