Impact of Organic Matter on the Growth of Jatropha Curcas and Moringa Oleifera Seedlings Beneath Water Deficit

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out in order to determine the proper irrigation rate and the best organic matter in a loamy sand soil to optimize the growth, biomass, and chemical composition of the seedlings of Jatropha curcas (poison nut) and Moringa oleifera (horseradish tree). Three irrigation deficits (100, 75, and 50% of field capacity F.C.) and three organic substance treatments [control, compost, and humic acid (HA)] were implemented in a splitplot design. Generally, increasing the irrigation deficit from 100% to 50% of F.C. decreased growth and biomasses for both plants. The 75% F.C. was the better treatment that enhanced the growth and biomasses parameters of J. curcas seedlings. Contrarily, HA exceeds compost in increasing these growth parameters but compost and HA were alike for increasing shoots (fresh and dry weights) and decreasing roots biomasses. HA and compost under 100 and 75% F.C. were significantly similar to the decreased roots biomass, as well as, the S:R ratio of J. curcas seedlings. The results revealed that regardless of their effects and mechanism to resist drought, both J. curcas and M. oleifera are well adapted to semi-arid regions when amended with HA or compost, under irrigation deficit 75% of F.C.

Interactive Effects of Salinity and Water Deficit Stresses on the Growth Parameters and Chemical Composition of Lagerstroemia Indica Plants

“…The results in Table ( 5) also pointed out that extending the intervals between irrigation from 4 to 6, 8 or 10 days resulted in a significant augmentation in the same investigated features in comparison to irrigation every 4 days. Similar results were reported by previous workers who reported an increase due to water deficit stress in Na + or Cl − % (Ashour and El-Attar, 2017), proline or phenols content (Hodaei et al, 2018;Kashefi and Bahri, 2019;El-Gamal and Khamis, 2021;Papú et al, 2021 andShaltout et al, 2022).…”