EFFECTS OF SOLE AND MIXED CULTURE OF WHEAT CROP AND PHOSPHORUS FERTILIZATION ON THE SOLUBILITY OF PHOSPHORUS IN THE SOIL

Abstract

Farmers face a challenging task to harvest yield potential of crops as well as improving fertilizer use-efficiency under their limited farm resources. Among the macronutrients, the relative efficiency of phosphorus fertilizer is very low in alkaline-calcareous soils under arid and semi-arid environments. Therefore, a field study was undertaken to quantify the interactive effects of wheat varieties and phosphorous fertilization on grain yield and solubility of phosphorous nutrient in the rhizosphere. The treatments consisted of (a) two wheat varieties (Sehr-2006, Shafaq-2006, mixed culture) and (b) three phosphorus levels (0, 45, 85 kg P2O5 per hectare) were arranged in randomized complete block design and replicated four times. The results showed that biological grain yield and 1000-grain weight of wheat increased by 8.7%, 14.46% and 8.48% under mixed culture of varieties sehr-2006 and shafaq-2006, respectively over the solely grown varieties. The application of phosphorus @ 85 kg P2O5 ha-1 resulted in increased quantity of total biological yield, grain yield and 1000-grain weight compared to unfertilized crop. The uptake of nitrogen and phosphorus contents were substantially enhanced under mixed culture cropping pattern over sole wheat cultivars. The availability of phosphorus was increased by19.70% under mixed cropping over sole culture. It is inferred from the study that mixed cropping produced synergetic effects on the availability of nutrients in the rhizosphere, and thereby resulted in the higher production of wheat crop