EFFECT OF GRAIN BIOINOCULATION ON WHEAT YIELD AND ITS COMPONENTS UNDER APPLYING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF NITROGEN FERTILIZATION

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at El-Wanysa village, Itsadistrict, El-Fayoum Governorate, during the two successive winterseasons of 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 to investigate the influence ofapplied different mineral nitrogen levels and grain bio-inoculationwith, Azotobacter and /or Azospirillum and their interactions on wheatgrowth, yield and its attributes as well as N-uptake of either wheatgrain or straw and grain protein content. A split plot design with threereplicates was used. The obtained results could be summarized asfollows:The results showed significant increases in plant dry weight,plant height, spike length, 1000-grain weight, grain or straw yield/fed.N-uptake by straw or grain and of grain protein content either byincreasing the rate of mineral nitrogen or with grain inoculation by thetested N2-fixers. In addition, the dual grain inoculation withAzotobacter and Azospirillum performed significantly greater followedby single inoculation with either Azospirillum or Azotobacter. At anylevel of N-fertilizer, the inoculated treatments gave much higher strawand grain yields than the uninoculated one.From the economical point of view, it could be concluded that,the amount of mineral N-fertilizer could be reduced by using grain bioinoculation, which in turn increases soil fertility as well as, minimizesthe production cost and environmental pollution, which can occur bythe excess use of chemical fertilizers.