Management of Saline Water and Nitrogen Fertilizer in Maize Cultivation

Supplying human and animal nutritional needs requires suitable use of water resources. Due to the decrease of fresh water resources for agriculture, saline water resources cannot be ignored. Increasing water salinity reduces the water absorption by plant, due to decreasing the water potential. On the other hand, soil infertility (such as nitrogen deficiency) decreases the evapotranspiration and crop yield. The present study was to increase the water and nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency of maize, under salinity stress condition. This was done by managing the consumption of saline water and nitrogen fertilizer. In this research, irrigation requirement was determined proportional to the plant evapotranspiration to avoid excessive saline water use.

In this research, two treatments of water salinity and nitrogen deficiency in four levels and three replications were implemented as a factorial experiment in a randomized complete block design. The studied plant was maize (S. C. 704 cultivar) sown in plots with dimensions of 3 × 3 meters and 1.5 meters distance. In this research, fertility stress was in the form of nitrogen fertilizer consumption and at four levels. Treatments of ، ، and consisted of consumption of 100, 75, 50 and 25% of nitrogen fertilizer, respectively. Salinity stress has been applied by irrigation of the plant with saline water. Water salinity treatments were selected based on the yield potential of maize, at four levels of 100, 90, 75 and 50%. According to the above four performance levels, treatments of ، ، and included irrigation water with electric conductivity of 0.5, 1.2, 3.5 and 7.5 (dS/m), respectively. The soil moisture content was measured at the depth of root development during the interval between two irrigations. Daily maize evapotranspiration was measured by the volumetric balance of water at the depth of root development. The stomata resistance of maize leaf was measured by the AP4 porometer device between two irrigations interval. Variance analysis and mean comparison of data were done by SPSS software and Duncan's multiple range test, respectively.

Water use efficiency In this research, the evapotranspiration and dry matter yield of maize decreased under salinity stress and nitrogen deficiency treatments. This seems to be caused by the water potential decrease (due to salinity stress) and the nitrogen deficit in the soil. Under these conditions, optimum use of water and fertilizer increased water use efficiency. At first without water and fertilizer management, water use efficiency in different treatments (to), ranged from 2.74 to 4.4 kg/ (in 2017) and from 2.57 to 4.35 kg/ (in 2018). With suitable management of irrigation, water use efficiency, however, increased in stress treatments and approached to optimum treatment. The range of water use efficiency was from 4.2 to 4.4 kg/ (in 2017) and from 4.15 to 4.32 kg/ (in 2018). The reason for this was the management of irrigation volume based on actual evapotranspiration in stress treatments. On the other hand, increasing soil nitrogen was an appropriate strategy to increase water use efficiency. But in high salinity stress, despite the optimum use of water and fertilizer, it was not possible to achieve optimal water use efficiency. This is explainable by the harmful effect of salinity on the reduction of nutrient uptake (especially nitrogen) by the plant. Nitrogen use efficiency Soil nitrogen deficiency and increasing water salinity reduced nitrogen use efficiency. In different stress treatments, nitrogen use efficiency ranged from 3.34 to 5.11 kg/kg (in 2017) and from 3.06 to 5 kg/kg (in 2018). The results showed the destructive effect of salinity on nitrogen uptake by the plant. Under these conditions, the ions in the soil (especially the sodium and calcium) caused the plant to be unable to absorb nitrogen from the soil. Therefore, the production of plant matter was reduced. The results showed that proper management of nitrogen can increase nitrogen use efficiency under salinity stress. At high salinity levels, the nitrogen fertilizer was not, however, absorbed by the plant and accumulated in the soil.

The results showed that water use management could increase the water use efficiency under stress treatments, by controlling evapotranspiration. On the other hand, soil fertility increased nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency under salinity stress. Among all treatments, had optimum water and nitrogen use efficiency. Overall, the volume of water used in the field should be adjusted to the actual requirement of the plant to prevent excessive consumption under salinity stress. In addition, increasing soil nitrogen, rather than more irrigation water, appears to be a suitable strategy to increase crop yield.