Growth, Yield and Water Use Effeciency of Forage <i>Sorghum</i> as Affected by Npk Fertilizer and Deficit Irrigation

Abstract

Drought stress (DS) is an important limiting factor for crop growth and production in some regions of the world. Limitation in water availability precludes optimal irrigation in some production regions. Therefore, investigations on the interaction of other factors to mitigate the DS to varying degree are important. Two field experiments were conducted in the experimental farm of the National Research Centre, Shalakan, Kalubia Governorate, Egypt, during 2004 and 2005 summer seasons to evaluate the interactions between N, P, K rates and optimal vs. deficit irrigation regimes on biomass yield as well as water use efficiency (WUE) of forage sorghum. Omission of the 4th irrigation significantly decreased the biomass of sorghum c.v. Pioneer, as compared to that of the plants receiving optimal irrigation or subject to omission of the 2nd irrigation. The biomass yield increased with an increase in NPK fertilizer rates. Plant height and leaf area also decreased by omitting the 2nd irrigation as compared to that of the plants under optimal irrigation, and further declined with omission of the 4th irrigation. The biomass of the plants (dry weight basis) that received the high N, P, K rates was greater by 26%, 29%, and 35% as compared to that of the plants that received no N, P, K fertilizers, under optimal irrigation, omission of the 2nd, and omission of the 4th irrigation, respectively. The corresponding increases in water use efficiency (based on fresh weight yield) were 37%, 42%, and 55%.

Plasticity of Sorghum Stem Biomass Accumulation in Response to Water Deficit: A Multiscale Analysis from Internode Tissue to Plant Level

“…Interestingly, the diameter of internodes elongating under water deficit was not significantly affected by drought and thus did not contribute to the reduction of stem biomass ( Table 2 and Figure 4 ). Ottman et al (2001) , Almodares et al (2013) , Hussein and Alva (2014) , and Fracasso et al (2016) attributed the reduction of stem biomass by drought to a reduction of plant height but did not relate this response to internode size and number. Although some reports showed that biomass production is more determined by stem height than diameter, particularly across genetic variation ( George-Jaeggli et al, 2011 ; Salas Fernandez et al, 2015 ), the present study is not in line with some other studies: Almodares et al (2013) reported for two genotypes that stem diameter was reduced proportionally to drought intensity and contributed to the reduction of stem biomass.…”

Estimation of Heterosis and Combining Ability Effects on Grain Yield and Some Agronomic Traits of Sorghum under Three NPK Fertilizers Levels

“…Abou-Amer & Kewan (2014) stated that fodder yield was increased significantly by increasing N and P fertilizer levels. Also, Hussein & Alva (2014) reported that the increased rates of N, P, K increased the plant growth and biomass. Sorghum hybrids produce more biomass as compared with their parents (Sahoo, 2010).…”

Influence of Sowing Times, Densities, and Soils to Biomass and Ethanol Yield of Sweet Sorghum

“…It was also noted that soil aluminum caused significant stress for sorghum. The amounts of N, P, and K in soils are critical to determine fertilizer doses incorporated to soils to increase the yields of sorghum as well as other crops [30,31]. Small amount of nutrients, particularly Zn, Fe, and Mn applied by foliar spraying significantly promote the yield of crops [32].…”