Amelioration of Water Stress Effect on Sorghum Plant Growth and Water Use Efficiency by Application of Potassium Silicate and Salicylic Acid
Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: The present study was carried out during the summer season of 2017 to ameliorate the effect of water stress on growth parameters of sorghum plant, macronutrient uptake, water use efficiency and dry matter by addition of potassium silicate and salicylic acid as foliar applications.Two pot experiments were conducted at the farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Nasr city, Cairo, Egypt.The two factorial experiments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with 9 treatments and three replicates per treatment in each experiment.In the first experiment, foliar spray of potassium silicate (1 and 2 %) and untreated as the control were applied under 100, 75 and 50 % of field capacity (FC).In the second experiment, foliar application of salicylic acid (100 and 200 ppm) and untreated as the control were applied under 100, 75 and 50% of field capacity (FC).Potassium silicate and salicylic acid were sprayed on the vegetative growth of sorghum plants four times every two weeks, after ten days of planting during the period of the experiment (60 days).The results showed that there were significant increases in the growth parameters, i.e. plant height, stem diameter, fresh and dry weight of sorghum plants as a result of foliar application by potassium silicate and salicylic acid under water stress compared with the control.It is clear that, potassium silicate was more effective than salicylic acid in improving all growth parameters.Decreasing water availability generally results in reduced the total nutrient concentration in sorghum plants, the most affected was P and K under all levels of moisture content.But nitrogen content decreased at 75 % FC, and increased at 50% FC.Also, NPK uptake significantly increased with increasing foliar applications of potassium silicate and salicylic acid under all levels of moisture content compared with the control.The data clearly reveal that foliar applications of potassium silicate had the highest significant water use efficiency compared to the control.Also, salicylic acid gave a positive effect on water use efficiency.
Authors: S. Abdeen, A. Mancy
Institution: Al-Azhar University
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4210592299