Integrated fertilizer management to attain sunflower sustainable production under different irrigation regimes

Abstract

Nitrogen release studies are of considerable interest in soil and environmental science. The objective of this research was to study integrated fertilizer management for the reduction of nitrogen leaching in sandy soils. An experiment was conducted during 2005–2006 to evaluate the effect of integration of zeolite, manure and urea on some traits of sunflower under different irrigation regimes. The results demonstrated that different irrigation regimes had significant effects on seed yield and yield component, final dry matter, chlorophyll content, leaf area index (LAI) and oil yield. But elements concentration in leaf and seed were not affected by irrigation regimes. Also it was observed that seed yield, oil yield, capitulum diameter, percentage protein, chlorophyll content, final dry matter, yield component, nitrogen concentration of leaf and seed, LAI and water use efficiency (WUE) were affected significantly by manure treatments. Interaction effects were significant on some traits. Finally, regarding the results of this experiment and the significant effect of the application of zeolite, the best treatment is suggested as the supply of 80 kg ha⁻¹ N by urea and 50 kg ha⁻¹ N by manure in combination with 15% of total manure weight zeolite, under the first irrigation regime.

Keywords:

• cattle manure
• nutrition management
• sunflower
• yield
• zeolite

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr Hamid Dehghani for providing the facilities for this study. The authors also thank Dr Seyed Ali Mohammad Modarres Sanavy for his supervision in statistical analysis.