Document Type : Research articles.
Authors
1
Soils and Water Dept., Fac. of Agric., El Fayoum University, Egypt
2
Soils, Water and Environ. Res. Inst., Agric. Res. Center, Giza, Egypt
Abstract
Agricultural utilization of desert marginal soils at El Fayoum
Governorate edges is of importance to support the local farmer incomes,
particularly under the best and suitable management practices of land and
available water resources. The choice a newly reclaimed soil encompassing
by Eocene limestone at the eastern edge of Tamia district was a matter of
concern in this work. It is a sandy clay loam in texture, slightly saline, nonsodic, and calcareous in nature with a subsurface diagnostic horizon of
calcigypsic one, and classified as Typic Calcigypsids, fine loamy, mixed,
heperthermic, moderately deep. According to a parametric system, it could
be evaluated as moderately suitable (S2ws3s4), with soil limitations of
wetness, soil depth and CaCO3 content, with an intensity degree for each
lies in the range of slight-moderate (rating = 90-80).
The obtained analytical data pointed to a considerable decrease in soil
productivity due to high CaCO3 content and low organic matter content as
well as a relatively high soil pH value. These factors are the main reasons of
deficiency for most plant nutritive elements, particularly phosphorus and
zinc in the soil under study. Hence, suitable agrochemical amendments have
to be applied to sustain its productivity and to minimize the possible adverse
effects of both high CaCO3 content and soil pH. Therefore, a field
experiment was conducted on the chosen soil, where lentil plants (Lens
esculenta c.v. Giza 9) were sown during the winter season of 2005-2006.
The investigated soil plots were irrigated with the available irrigation water
source (mixture of the Nile and drainage waters at a ratio of 1:1) in a
randomized complete blocks design with three replicates. The agricultural
management practices were conducted as usual, where elemental sulphur
was applied to the soil plots (i.e., agrochemical soil amendment) at four
rates (i.e., 0, 250, 500 and 750 kg S fed-1), while Zn was foliar sprayed on
the grown plants (i.e., supporting Zn deficient) at three rates (i.e., 0, 450 and
900 g fed-1).
The results showed that applied S and Zn, especially at their highest
rates together, caused more pronounced increases in the vegetative growth
parameters, i.e., number of bacterial nodules/plant, dry weight of bacterial
nodules/plant, plant height, number of branches/plant and number of
pods/plant. The corresponding relative increases at the highest applied rates
of S and Zn (750 kg S/fed + 900 g Zn/fed) were 92.61, 191.38, 34.27, 69.95
and 83.58% over the control treatment, respectively. Increase percentages in
soil organic matter, N, P, K, Fe, Mn and Zn vs decrease percentage in soil
pH occurred due to the dual application of (750 kg S/fed + 900 g Zn/fed)
after 55 days from planting were 60.78, 65.02, 78.05, 54.14, 44.76, 51.83
and 119.74% vs-10.62% over and below the control treatment, respectively.
At harvest, seed weights/plant or /fed, 1000 seed weight and seed
protein % as well as N, P, K, S and Zn uptake by seed were also positively
affected, where the corresponding relative increases at the treatment of (750
kg S/fed + 900 g Zn/fed) reached 82.85, 71.59, 77.27, 42.28, 42.31, 87.88,
28.06,71.79 and 61.01 % over the control, respectively. As a conclusion, it
could be deduced that application of S as a soil amendment at a rate of 750
kg/fed in combination with any micronutrient deficient as foliar spray is
important to sustain soil productivity and to obtain economically best crop < br />yield attributes under such a soil calcareous in nature for avoiding a direct
restrictive effect of CaCO3 on the nutrients released and their mobility
towards plant roots. This is true, since the suggested sulphur efficiency at
the recommended S rate for lentil seeds utilization of N, P, K, S (macro) and
Zn (micronutrients) was 105.47, 156.82, 88.60, 141.83 and 114.28 %,
respectively.
Keywords
)
View on SCiNiTO