Influence of Water Regimes and Soil Conditioners on Yield, Yield Components and Water Utilization Efficiency of Eg Yptian Clover (Variety Fahl)

Abstract

Two field experiments were carried out at Giza Agriculture Research Station during the two growing seasons of 2010/2011 and 2011/2012. This investigation was aired to study the effect of different levels of irrigation i.e. irrigation at 100, 80 and 60% ETO with the soil conditioner such as compost and humic acid on Egyptian clover variety (Fahl) yield, yield components and crop-water relations. The experimental treatments were arranged in a split plot design with three replicates. The main plots represented three irrigation regimes, whereas the sub-main plots represented the test soil conditioners i.e. compost at a rate of 6 ton/fad and humic acid sprayed as 2% v/v solution three times in 15-day interval starting at sowing. The main results could be summarized as follows:-Irrigation regimes had a significant effect on growth traits, yield and yield components of clover crop and maximum values were obtained with irrigation at 100% ET0 (wet regime). On the contrary, minimum values for the corresponding respective characters were recorded with irrigation at 60% ET0 (dry regime). It could be stated that all growth, yield and yield components traits were significantly increased due to applying the assessed soil conditioners, compared with the control.-Seasonal applied water increased as irrigation rate increased, where the values were 1010, 808 and 606 m 3 fad-1 in 1 st season and 1069, 855 and 641 m 3 fad-1 in 2 nd season, respectively, with 100, 80 and 60% ET0 irrigation regimes. In addition, applied water was slightly increased due to the tested soil conditioners.-Water Utilization Efficiency was enhanced under irrigation at 60% ET0 (dry regime) and both compost and similar trend was exhibited with humic acid application. Results showed that application of the tested soil conditioners increased total NPK content of mono-cut Egyptian clover plants and the soil after harvest as well, comparing with the control.

Response of Egyptian Clover (Variety Fahl) to Foliar Spray with Potassium Humate, Fulvate as Well as Amino Acids Mixture

“…Foliar spray of 10 ml/L K-humate increased N, P and K% more than control by 13.73, 41.38 and 36.36%, respectively. In this respect, Abbas et al (2013) found that application of humic acid on Fahl clover plant exhibited the highest values of N, P and K%. Such finding may be attributed to the favorite effect of humic acid in enhancing mineral nutrients uptake by plants, through its effect on the permeability of roots membranes (Mesut et al, 2010).…”

“…In this connection, Sadek and Sallam (2012) found that foliar spray with humic acid on barley plant resulted in substantial promotion of the studied growth parameters, kernel weight/spike and 1000 grains weight compared to control. Abbas et al (2013) stated that treated mono-cut Egyptian clover (Fahl) plants with humic acid increased growth, yield and yield components traits compared with control. Moraditochaee et al, (2012) on cowpea plant found that foliar spray with amino acid increased number of pods/plant and seed yield.…”

Effect of Growth Stimulant Substances on the Productivity and Quality of Some Egyptian Clover (Trifolium Alexandrinum, L.) Varieties

“…The superiority effect of HA obtained herein may be due to its role in enhancing the uptake of macronutrients such as N, P and S (Chen and Aviad, 1990) or micronutrients such as Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn (Chen et al, 1999).Moreover, the superiority effect of SA may be due to its role in ion uptake and transport (Khan et al, 2003), the regulation of plant growth and development (Horvath et al, 2007) and enhancement of plant resistance against different biotic and abiotic stress through different mechanism (Kadioglu et al, 2011). In this concern, many investigators found improving effects of some tested stimulant substances such as HA on plant height of clover (El-Hefny, 2010; Daur, 2014 and El-Maaz and Ismail, 2016), leaf area of cowpea (El-Hefny, 2010) and peas (Osman and Rady, 2012) and total dry weight of clover (Abbas et al, 2013) and cowpea (El-Hefny, 2010) as well as AS on number of stems / clover plant (Kumar et al, 2013 andRani et al, 2017).…”