PJB-2018-430
INTERACTIVE EFFECT OF DEFICIT IRRIGATION AND MANURE ON SOIL PHYSICAL HEALTH INDICES AND PERFORMANCE OF WHEAT CROP (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.)
Sarvet Jehan
Abstract
Water scarcity has become a challenge for food security at national and global level. This problem has aggravated by population explosion and inefficient irrigation practices. Keeping in view, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of dairy manure under different moisture regimes on growth and yield of wheat crop, and soil properties. Three levels of irrigation were maintained based on soil field capacity (FC) as 60%, 80% and 100% FC in main plots, while four levels of dairy manure at 10, 15, 20 and 25 Mg ha-1 were used in subplots. It was found that dairy manure improved the hydraulic conductivity under each moisture regimes, and it was dependent on quantity applied. It improved from 31.6-40.0 mm hr-1, 46.8-54.9 mm hr-1 and 50.4-63.08 mm hr-1 at 60%, 80% and 100% FC, respectively. However, bulk density and soil strength were decreased with increase in level of dairy manure. The deficit moisture level in soil suppressed the growth and reduced the wheat yield as highest plant height, spike length and grain yield was recorded at 100% FC. However, application of dairy manure mitigated the moisture deficiency and improved growth and yield parameters. Similarly soil moisture content affected the photosynthetic rate of the plants, but amending soil with dairy manure alleviated this stress. Photosynthetic rate was improved from 9.47 to 9.93, 9.92 to 11.22 and 11.35 to 13.98 µmol m-2s-1 at 60%, 80% and 100% FC, respectively. Application of dairy manure significantly enhanced soil organic carbon at all levels of irrigation and application of DM25 has shown 70.5 % more SOC than application of DM10. The results suggest that dairy manure can alleviate growth and yield reduction of wheat caused by water deficiency through improvement in soil properties and by enhancing soil organic carbon contents.
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