Role of dairy manure in improving wheat yield under deficit irrigation

Sarvet Jehan, Muhammad Iqbal, Zahir Ahmed Zahir, Muhammad Farooq

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Water scarcity has become a challenge for food security at national and global level. This problem has been aggravated by population explosion and inefficient irrigation practices. Keeping this in view, a lysimetric experiment was carried out to evaluate the impact of dairy manure under various moisture levels on growth and produce of wheat and soil properties. Three levels of irrigation were maintained based on soil field capacity (FC) at 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. Soil bulk density and soil strength decreased with increase in level of dairy manure. The deficit moisture level in soil suppressed the growth and reduced the wheat yield, 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. Application of dairy manure significantly enhanced soil organic carbon at all levels of irrigation. 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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)639-644
Number of pages6
JournalPakistan Journal of Botany
Volume52
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2020
Externally publishedYes

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Role of dairy manure in improving wheat yield under deficit irrigation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this