PERFORMANCE OF SORGHUM AND PEARL MILLET FORAGE CROPS PRODUCTIVITY BY USING DIFFERENT AGRICULTURAL MANAGEMENTS UNDER SALINITY CONDITIONS | ||||
| Journal of Plant Production | ||||
| Article 24, Volume 7, Issue 2, February 2016, Page 311-316 PDF (437.47 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jpp.2016.45348 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Authors | ||||
| Kh. H. Hassan1; M. Sh. Abd El-Maaboud1; M. Draz2; H. El Shaer3 | ||||
| 1Plant Production Department, Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt | ||||
| 2Sand Dunes department, Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt | ||||
| 3Animal Nutrition Department, Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| The present study was carried out at South Sinai Research Station, Ras Sudr, South Sinai Governorate during 2008 and 2009 summer seasons. Two field experiments were carried out on two forage local varieties i.e. sorghum, hybrid 102 (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) and pearl millet, Shandweel 1, (Pennisetum glaucum L.,R. Br.) irrigated with saline water (4000 ppm) under calcareous soil (53.6ْ% CaCO3) with pH values of 7.5-8.1, sandy to sandy loam as soil texture. The first one was conducted to study the response of two forage crops, sorghum and pearl millet to soil mulching with defoliated leaves of Casuarina sp. or without mulching aiming to reducing evaporation and increasing soil moisture content. The second one was carried out to study the effect of N rates as soil application i.e. 100, 75 and 50% of N dose recommended, 80 kg/ha, as a basal dose and after each cut as well as foliar application with 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% urea before 2-3 weeks from any cutting time. The aim of this trial was to evaluate utilization of the proper soil N dose with supplementary by foliar application of urea to avoid the increase of soil salinity. The main obtained results of the first experiment showed that soil mulching with casuarina defoliated leaves significantly increased soil moisture content as well as plant height, number of tillers/m2, fresh and dry forage yields of sorghum and pearl millet forage crops as compared with without soil mulching, whereas, these increments were decreased gradually from the 1st cut to the 3rd cut. However, pearl millet forage crop had a significant increase in the above mentioned characters as compared with sorghum crop. Results of the second experiment indicated that forage yield of the 1st cut was reduced with decreasing soil N application from 100% to 50% of N recommended dose. Forage yield of pearl millet crop produced more than 2 folds of sorghum crop under salinity conditions, however, forage yield of sorghum and pearl millet crops were reduced about 43.2% and 29.7%, respectively with decreasing N doses from 100 to 50% of the N recommended dose. These results indicated that pearl millet crop was more adapted to salinity conditions of South Sinai conditions. These findings may be due to pearl millet forage crop showed the fact that higher value of slope for salinity tolerance (7.1 dSm-1) than that of sorghum crop (4.8 dSm-1), although the two forage crops attained the same values of the threshold of salinity (4.0 dSm-1). In the 2nd cut, irrespective of N fertilizer either soil or foliar applications, pearl millet forage crop had about four folds of that obtained for sorghum crop. Regarding application of soil N doses, application of 75% dose showed the highest value of forage yield, whereas, the lowest dose produced the lowest forage yield. This means that fertilized with 75% the recommended dose more suitable under saline conditions of Sinai. In addition, forage yield was increased by 55.8% with increasing foliar application by urea levels from 0.5% to 1.5%. It could be recommended that pearl millet forage crop is more adapted and suitable for saline conditions at South Sinai governorate, under using soil mulching. Moreover, foliar application of urea at 1.0 and 1.5% with 100, and 75% of recommended N dose and enough to obtain higher return for pearl millet and sorghum forage crops, respectively. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| salinity; Calcareous soil; Forage crops; Sorghum; Pearl millet; Soil mulching and N application | ||||
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