Effect of Potassium Silicate Spray and Water Stress on Yield and Yield Components of Sorghum

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out for the year 2021-2022 at Al Buaitha Research Station of the College of Agriculture - Anbar University, to study the effect of potassium silicate and water stress on the growth and yield of sorghum. The experiment was carried out using a Split-Plot arrangement according to the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The main plots included irrigation intervals (I1, irrigated every 4 days; I2, irrigated every 8 days; and I3, irrigated every 12 days), while the concentrations of potassium silicate fertilizer (250 S1, 500 S2, and 750 S3 ml liter−1 of distilled water), in addition to the control treatment S0, which was sprayed with distilled water only, allocated to the sub-plots. The results showed a significant effect of water stress treatments I1 and I2 on the average traits of head length, number of seeds per head, grain yield, and biological yield (26.20, 1920, 6.34, and 15.30 respectively). while, the treatments of potassium silicate fertilization S2 and S3 had a significant effect on the head length, number of seeds per head, grain yield, and biological yield (26.56, 1968, 6.12, and 14.63 respectively). The results also showed a significant interaction effect between the two study factors of I2S2, I1S2, I2S0, and I1S0 on the same traits (27.17, 2052, 6.52, and 16.32 respectively).