Boron and magnesium foliar application increase grain yield of durum wheat under drought by improving some physiological parameters
¹Department of Field Crops, National Agricultural Research Center (NARC),
PO Box 639, Baqa'a 19381, Jordan
²Department of Plant Production, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 3030, 22110, Irbid, Jordan
*Correspondence: abdallah.aldahadha@narc.gov.jo
Abstract:
Grain yield of wheat is primarily limited by water stress. Therefore, to increase productivity under drought conditions, a pot experiment was carried out at Maru Agricultural Research Station (MARS), Jordan, during the year 2021 to investigate the effect of foliar fertilizer by boron and magnesium under drought at either tillering or anthesis stages on some physiological parameters and yield components of two varieties of durum wheat. Foliar application by combined boron and magnesium had significantly improved the transpiration rate and relative water content (RWC) of wheat varieties at both tillering (4.39 µg cm-2s-1 and 82.55%, respectively) and anthesis (7.43 µg cm-2s-1 and 77.28%, respectively) growth stages, when compared with controls at tillering (3.56 µg cm-2s-1 and 76.63%, respectively) and anthesis (5.79 µg cm-2s-1 and 66.21%, respectively). RWC was significantly the highest by foliar boron (79.4%) at tillering stage under drought. Meanwhile, total chlorophyll content by SPAD was significantly the highest by combined boron and magnesium (46.8) during anthesis stage under drought. In general, the results indicated that var. Maru 1 had significantly higher grain yield (20.1 g/ plant) than var. Hourani (12.1 g/plant) may be due to differences in genetic makeup. Foliar application by combined boron and magnesium significantly increased wheat varieties’ grain weight at tillering (18.2 g/plant) and anthesis (8.7 g/ plant) drought when compared with controls at either tillering (13.7 g/plant) or anthesis (5.5 g/plant) drought. However, foliar application did not significantly improve the grain weight under well-watered conditions. Our findings showed that the foliar application is more important at antheis drought than at tillering for increasing grain yield of wheat by improving of some physiological parameters.
Key words:
anthesis, micronutrient, transpiration rate, Triticum durum, water stress, yield component