Iron nutrition in wheat genotypes under dry farming and irrigated conditions

Abstract

The advent of the wheat revolution in India has produced varieties, essentially varying in heights and other plant characters. Studies on the varietal behavior in respect to micronutrient deficiencies suggested that resistance depends upon their genetic makeup. The dwarfing genes did not seem to be involved in varietal susceptibility to these deficiencies. Apart from the nutrient stress conditions, literature is not available with respect to the behavior of the varieties with differing tallness in relation to iron nutrition under field conditions.

Iron nutrition of three genotypes of wheat (Triticum aestivum) viz. Heera (dwarf), Sonalika (medium) and C 306 (tall) was studied. These were grown under irrigated and dry farming field conditions on typic ustochrept alluvial sandy loam in post‐monsoon season.

The soil iron availability and the root weight of the three genotypes increased significantly with irrigation in 0–10 _fcm soil, whereas in 20–100 cm soil there was no such effect. The varieties did not differ significantly with respect to dry matter production, root weight and concentration of iron but significantly varied in plant height. Plant height was a varietal character and increased with irrigation, the concentration of iron in the dry matter was independent of varieties and irrigation level. Irrigation had increased the dry matter yield and hence the uptake of iron.

Except for the plant height, other parameters such as plant weight and iron uptake were found to be not a varietal character. The effect of irrigation was pronounced on all these three observations. Under dry farming conditions less dry matter was produced and hence resulted in less uptake of iron. This was also evidenced from the observation that there was less depletion of iron and less root growth in the soil profile.

Key words:

• Iron
• wheat nutrition
• irrigation
• dry farming

Notes

Presently at All India Co‐ordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture, ICAR, Hyderabad ‐ 500 013, India.