Response of Soft Wheat Varieties to Application Time of Nitrogen Fertilizer under Mediterranean Climate Conditions

Abstract

Applying nitrogen fertilizer during the appropriate time is an opportunity to reduce the application amount and improve its availability in the plant, which reduces the costs of Agriculture and environmental pollution. The experiment was carried out in the winter agricultural season 2020-2021 at two sites (Nimrud and Bashiqa) to study the response of soft wheat varieties to different application time of Nitrogen fertilizer under the Mediterranean climate conditions. The experiment included four soft wheat varieties (Benghal, Ebaa-99, Rashida, Tal-Afar), three application time of Nitrogen fertilizer at tillering stage (early application), stem elongation stage (late application) as well as control treatment (no application). The results showed that the Bashiqa site excelled at grain filling stage duration, bio yield, spike number, grain yield, harvest index, while the Nimrod site excelled in the rest of the traits. The Benghal variety excelled in the majority of studied traits at both sites, while application time of Nitrogen fertilizer of stem elongation stage (late application) excelled of the majority studied traits.