Analysis of Salinity- Deficit Irrigation Screening Experiments for Spring Wheat in Mashhad Region

The objective of current study was to perform screening experiment, (phase zero of response surface methodology) the analysis of salinity and water tensions for spring wheat in Mashhad region and derive water production functions. The experiment was performed in the Research Field of Agricultural Faculty of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2009-2010. Two water sources were selected: saline water (10 dS/m) and water without salinity limitation (0.5 dS/m). A single replicate factorial experiment with four variables and water requirements in different growth stages, was done with each variable having two levels, 20% and 100% of water requirements. The central points of experiment area with two replications were added for estimating the curvature in the fitted response surface. The results showed the water requirements in heading and flowering were the most important variables. The fitted water production functions estimated the yield of saline and non saline plots with correlation coefficients equalsing 0.95 and 0.99. In general, the obtained results proved the efficiency of the screening experiment in identifying the relative importance of variables and excluding the ineffective variables.