Effect of synthetic and natural soil conditioners on some soil physical properties and botanical characters of sunflower (Helianthus annus, L.)‎ plants grown under salinity conditions

Abstract EN

The effect of polyacrylamide gel (hydrogel) at the rates of 0, 0.04, 0.07 and 0.11% or farmyard manure at rates of, 0, 0.5 and 0.7% either alone or in a combination with each other was studied as soil conditioners on sunflower (Helianthus annus, L.) plants grown under soil salinity conditions.

The results showed that the soil total porosity, field capacity, wilting point, available water content values were significantly increased with increasing the application rates of the hydrogel and farmyard manure.

On the other hand, the soil bulk density and hydraulic conductivity values were significantly decreased.

The water stable aggregates values were significantly increased by increasing hydrogel and farmyard manure application rates under all along the two successive seasons treatments studied.

Also, The results showed that the plant growth parameters (i.e., plant height, number of leaves/plant, leaf area and dry weight of leaves/plant), yield and its components (i.e., diameter of inflorescence, dry weight of inflorescence, weight of 100 seeds and weight of seed yield/plant) and chemical constituents of sunflower plants (i.e., N, P, K, Ca, total carbohydrates, chlorophyll a, b, carotenoids, seed crude protein and oil concentrations), also, the anatomical structure measurments which studied on leaf and stem were increased by increasing the rates of hydrogel or farmyard manure especially at the highest rates.

The maximum increase of the different studied parameters was obtained by the combination between the hydrogel at the rate 0.11% and farmyard manure at the rate (0.7%).

However, sodium and prolein concentrations of leaves which were decreased.