Role of Titanium Dioxide Foliar Spraying in Enhancing Phosphorus Utilization Efficiency and Increasing the Growth and Productivity of Green Beans

• Ghufran Amer Munshid1*and Ammar Sami Al-Bayati2

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This research was carried out at the research station of the University of Kufa during the growing season of 2025. This study aimed to investigate the response of the Spanish faba bean to high-phosphorus DAP fertilizer (P) and titanium dioxide (Ti). A factorial experiment with three replicates following a completely randomized block design was carried out, where the first factor comprised three levels of P fertilizer—soil incorporated (0, 90, 180) kg.ha^-1, while the second factor included three doses of foliar spray of Ti (0, 300, 600) mg.L^-1. Our findings indicated that the treatment of P fertilizer (P2) provided a significant superiority in the studied indicators (plant height 50.40 cm, leaf count 313 leaf.plant^-1, leaf area 4239 cm².plant^-1, root dry weight 5.48 g.plant^-1, leaf N 3.81%, leaf P 0.41%, leaf K 2.53%, and total yield 79.98 ton.ha^-1). Conversely, the control treatment (P0) recorded the lowest values for the same indicators (42.87 cm, 211.22 leaf.plant^-1, 2469 cm².plant^-1, 2.53 g.plant^-1, 3.31%, 0.25%, 1.88%, and 40.28 ton.ha^-1) respectively. Moreover, foliar spraying with Ti improved most plant indicators of growth, yield, and chemical indicators. The treatment (Ti2) recoded the highest values of the traits (plant height 49.13 cm, number of leaves 313.87 leaf.plant^-1, leaf area 4325 cm².plant^-1, root dry weight 4.80 g.plant^-1, leaf N 3.73%, leaf P 0.38%, leaf K 2.47%, and total yield 73.92 ton.ha^-1). In contrast, the control treatment (Ti0) recorded the lowest values for the same indicators, reaching (43.44 cm, 224.76 leaf.plant^-1, 2739 cm².plant^-1, 3.52 g.plant^-1, 3.43%, 0.27%, 1.94%, and 49.57 ton.ha^-1), consecutively. The interaction between the experiment factors also had a significant impact on some indicators, as the interaction treatment (P2Ti2) achieved the highest values compared to the control treatment (P0Ti0), which gave the lowest values. These results suggest that phosphorus combined with titanium represents an effective strategy for improving faba bean growth and productivity

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