An Attempt to Mitigation of Irrigation Water Deficit Stress in Pea (Pisum sativum, L) Plants by Phosphorus Fertilizer

Abstract

This investigation was carried in order to elucidate the response of pea (cv. Master pea) to various levels of Phosphorus fertilizer, i.e 45, 60, 75 and 90 kg as P2O5 /fed. under three levels of irrigation water deficit (100% of common irrigation as control, moderate stress 75 % of common irrigation and severe stress 50 % of the common irrigation). Therefore, two field experiments were conducted in the Experimental Station, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University during 2015 and 2016 in winter seasons. The results indicated that vegetative growth characters (plant height, plant fresh weight, branches number, leaves fresh weight, leaves number and leaves area) per plant, leaves chemical composition (N, P, K and chlorophyll pigments), pods yield and its quality (pods weight per plant, pods number per plant, seeds fresh weight per plant, 100 seeds fresh weight, seeds dry weight yield and pods yield per fed., Vit. C and TSS) and plant water relations (leaf relative water content and leaf membrane stability index) were decreased by increasing of irrigation water deficit. On the contrast, leaves and seeds dry matter % were increased by increasing of irrigation water deficit. On the other hand, water use efficiency is not affected with irrigation water deficit. With respect to the effect of phosphorus fertilizer rates, the data show that, the mentioned attributes were increased up to 60 kg as P2O5 /fed then declined at and 75 kg as P2O5 /fed. On the other hand, 45 kg as P2O5 /fed gave the lowest values for most effective mentioned parameters. As for the interaction between irrigation water deficit and Phosphorus fertilizer rates showed that common irrigation and 60 kg as P2O5 /fed combination recorded the maximum values for more effective mentioned characters. In addition, results showed that common irrigation or moderate stress treatments with Phosphorus fertilizer rates had insignificant differences for most effective previous parameters.