Increased soyabean-rhizobium symbiosis by magnetically treated water

Abstract

Water is a vital limiting factor for agricultural production in certain areas. Thus, maximizing crop water productivity has been a main research priority in recent years. Hence, a pot experiment under natural conditions, performed using a completely randomized factorial design, was conducted to investigate the influences of magnetically treated water on some biological properties and seed yield of five soyabean (Glycine max) varieties inoculated with Bradyrhizobium japonicum. A magnetic treatment device with magnetic field of 0.7 T was devised and used to treat water. With the exception of shoot:root ratio, the magnetic treatment of water had an enhancing effect on all measurements of the five soyabean varieties, shoot and root dry weight, shoot and root nitrogen content, shoot and shoot phosphorus content, and seed yield. The effect was variety-dependent. Although there were differences in the shoot:root ratio among soyabean varieties, there was no significant difference between magnetically treated water and non-magnetically treated water. In all tested varieties, the lowest nodulation (nodule number and weight) per plant was found in untreated water. The nodule number per plant increased from 40 to 61 in BtTellar, from 16 to 37 in Clark, from 28 to 47 in InterPrice, from 27 to 73 in Sari and from 16 to 34 in Williams after they were irrigated with magnetically treated water.