STUDIES ON NITROGEN CONTENT, YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS IN GUAR (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L. TAUB) AS INFLUENCED BY RHIZOBIUM INOCULATION AND NITROGEN FERTILIZATION

Abstract

A pot experiment was conducted during the successive two summer seasons of 2008 and 2009 at a wire proof green house of Sakha Agricultural Research Station, Kafr El-Sheikh, governorate, Egypt. The experiment aimed to evaluate the effect of nitrogen fertilizer levels (N0=without nitrogen fertilizer, N1=10 kgN/fed, N2=20 kg N/fed and N3=30 kg N/fed) and three nitrogen fixing bacteria (Control=without inoculation, AZ1 (Ga+650) and AZ2 (Ga+500) as Rhizobium strains) on nodulation, yield and yield components of guar plant grown on three( sandy, calcareous and clay soils) kinds different soil types. The experiment was conducted in a spilt plot design with three replicates. The Obtained results indicated that nodules dry weight increased significantly by adding 30 kg N/fed in the sandy soil whereas 20 kg N/fed (N2) gave the highest values of nodules dry weight with calcareous and clayey soil. 20 kg N/fed (N2) gave 289.44 and 289.44 mg/pot with clayey soil during first and second season, respectively. Also, inoculation with AZ2 increased significantly nodules dry weight with all soil types and the maximum nodules dry weight was 229 mg/pot with calcareous soil in the 1st season and 228.58 mg/pot with clayey soil in the 2nd season. In addition the interaction effect between nitrogen fertilizer and inoculation with nitrogen fixing bacteria in clayey soil gave the highest dry weight of nodules after 60 days with N2AZ2 (20kg N/fed combined with AZ2) of (840 and 640 mg/pot). Seed yield was increased significantly over control due to supplying with either 30 kg N/fed (N3) or AZ2 to a clayey soil. The highest seed yield values were obtained with 30 kg N/fed (N3) it gave 42.56 and 41.97 g/pot with clayey soil in the 1st and 2nd season, respectively. It was found that 20 kg N/fed gave the highest straw yield (117.73 g/pot) in the 1st with clayey soil whereas adding Az2 had the highest straw yield was 100.53 g/pot in the 1st season. Data also revealed that oil yield significantly increased with nitrogen levels and gave the highest yield with adding 30kg N/fed to clayey soil (4.45 g/pot) in the 1st and 2nd season, respectively. Also with AZ2 the highest values of oil yield was 3.43 and 3.46 g/pot in the 1st and 2nd season.