EFFECT OF COMPOST ON MAIZE (Zea mays) YIELD AND SOME CLAY SOIL PHYSICAL PROPERTIES UNDER DEFICIT IRRIGATION | ||||
| Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||||
| Article 13, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2011, Page 611-622 PDF (438.83 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2011.55645 | ||||
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| Authors | ||||
| T. A. EI-Maghraby1; M. A. A. Abdel-Salam2; M. Abdel-Warth1 | ||||
| 1Soils, Water, and Environment Res. Inst., Agric. Res. Center, Giza, Egypt | ||||
| 2Soils Dept., Fac. Agric., Moshtohor, Banha University, Egypt | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Field experiments were conducted for two seasons in the clay soil located at South of Sahl El-Hosainiya Research Station, Port-Said Governorate, Egypt. Maize (zea mays) was used as an experimental plant. The current work aims to asses effect of compost application as organic amendment at rates of zero (C0), 5.5(C1), 11.0(C2), and 16.5(C3) Mg f-1 (1 Mg "megagram"= 106 g i.e. metric ton); under irrigation using two water levels of full irrigation (I1) of 3300 m3 f-1, and deficit irrigation (I2) of 2640 m3 f-1 (80% of full irrigation). Grain yield in non-amended treatments was 1.788 to 2.482Mg f-1 while it was 2.757 to 6.316 Mg f-1 in compost- amended treatments. Water-use efficiency (in kg grains/m3 water) was 0.542 to 0.940 for non-amended treatments and 0.835to 2.392for those compost-amended treatments causing, average increases of 34.1, 161, and 92.9% for the C1, C2, and C3, respectively. The deficit irrigation 12 surpassed the full one I1 by 58.3%. Soil moisture curves at tensions of 0.01 up to 15.00 atm and available water (AW) increased due to compost. Compost had a slight effect on total porosity, but affected the distribution of pore size fractions creating more water-useful pores (i.e. the quickly drainable-, slowly-, drainable- and water-holding-pores) and decreasing the less-water-useful ones (i.e. the fine capillary pores). Aggregation and aggregate stability increased by compost; the high rate gave 6.8% large aggregates while the no compost gave 4.3% only. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Deficit Irrigation; compost application; maize aggregation; soil moisture curve; porosity | ||||
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