Influence of Nitrogen Fertilizer and Foliar Application of Salicylic Acid on Wheat

Abstract

Two cemented plots experiments were carried out during the winter seasons of 2012/2013 and 2013/2014, Soil Salinity Laboratory, Alexandria, Egypt, to study the effect of three levels of salicylic acid (SA) (0, 50, 100 ppm) and three rates of nitrogen fertilizer (75, 100, 125 kg N/feddan) on yield and yield components of wheat (Sakha 93). The experimental design was split plot with four replicates. The results indicated that increasing nitrogen fertilizer rates resulted in significant increase in plant height (cm), number of grain/spike, number of spikes/m2, 1000 grain weight (gm), grain yield (gm/plot), straw yield (gm/plot), and biological yield (gm/plot). Increasing salicylic acid rates resulted in significant increase in all the previous characters, in addition to grain weight/spike (gm). The interactions had no significant effect on the studied characters. The path analysis revealed that 1000 grain weight was the most important character with direct effect of 0.54 followed by number of spikes/m2 with direct effect of 0.33 followed by number of grain/spike with direct effect of 0.16.