Effect of biochar application on barley plants grown on calcareous sandy soils irrigated by saline water

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Departments of Soils and Water, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Assiut 71524, Egypt

2 Department of Soils and Water, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University

Abstract

In sustainable agriculture, protect the ecosystem by reducing chemical fertilizers are the main goal. Applying biochar to soils is a method to increase the available nutrients, improve soil physio-chemical characteristics and enhance plant growth. The current experiment assess, the influences of biochar (BC) on barely growth under saline conditions. Barely plants grown on a calcareous sandy soil were amended with BC at a rate of 0 (CK), 1 (BC1) and 3% (BC3) of soil weight and irrigated by saline water ( EC=13.8 dS m−1). The results showed that BC treatments realized significant effects on soil salinity, pH, soil organic matter (SOM), and plant nutrients. The diverse dosages of biochar of BC1 and BC3 could enhance SOM by 42.4 and 55.2% and the dry biomass was ameliorate by 4.7 and 15.4 %, respectively compared to the control. The biochar additions to soil increase the agronomic parameters preformance of nutrients utilization by barley plants. The results confirmed that the added biochar could augment the barley production, and improve the soil characteristics under saline conditions as well as its contribution for agriculture sustainability.

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