International Journal of Agricultural Science and Research (IJASR) ISSN 2250-0057 Vol.

2, Issue 3 Sep 2012 155-162 TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.,

EFFECT OF LEVELS OF COMPACTION, NITROGEN AND POTASSIUM ON CONTENT AND UPTAKE OF CA, MG & S IN WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.) CROP
1

INDRA RAJ SINGH & 2S.P. MAJUMDAR

College of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry, Fiji National University, Fiji Isaland 2 Deptt. of Soil Science, SKN College of Agriculture (RAU), Jobner

ABSTRACT
A field experiment was conducted at Shrin Karan Narendra College of Agriculture, Jobner, India using wheat (var. Raj 3077 as test crop. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with four levels of compaction (control, 4, 8 and 12 passing of 500 kg manually driven roller) as main plot treatments, and the combination of three levels of nitrogen (40, 80 and 120 kg N ha-1) and three levels of potassium (16.7, 33.3 and 50 kg K ha-1) as sub-plot treatment. Maximum content and uptake of Ca, Mg & S were recorded under twelve passings of 500 kg iron roller as compared to no compaction. Increase in levels of N and K revealed an increase in content and uptake of the Ca, Mg & S in wheat crop, respectively.

KEY WORDS: Sub-surface soil Compaction, Fertilizer, Content and Uptake INTRODUCTION
Sandy soils are of wide occurrence in arid and semi-arid regions of India. These soils are extremely permeable mainly because of their coarse texture, looseness and poor organic matter content. Their moisture retention capacity is also very low and more than one third of applied water or rainwater is lost through deep percolation (Mann and Singh, 1975), rendering these soils prone to heavy losses of soluble nutrients (Mann and Singh, 1977). Compaction of such soils at proper moisture content creates a barrier of relatively high bulk density in subsurface layer, which helps in minimizing percolation losses of nutrients and improve moisture storage in the soils. The extent of nutrient loss is higher particularly in case of nitrogen (N) followed by potassium (K) and phosphorus (P) (Mc Arthur and Knowles, 1993; Gupta and Majumdar, 1994). Potassium participates in maintaining the permeability of cell membrane and in keeping cell protoplasm in proper degree of hydration. Potassium also increase the tolerance of plants against moisture stress, heat, frost and diseases (Singh 2000). Ghildyal and Satyanarayana (1965) explored the possibility of increasing micropores at the expense of macropores by soil compaction. Majumdar and Saxena (1992) advocated compaction of sandy soil as a convenient and economic method of decreasing permeability and nutrient loss. Therefore a field experiment was undertaken to study the possibility of efficient nutrient utilization under various levels of compaction and fertilization regimes.

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MATERIALS AND METHODS

Field experiment was conducted at Agronomy Farm, Shrin Karan Narendra College of Agriculture, Jobner, which is situated at 75.280 E longitude and 26.060 N latitude at MSL 427 m, the climate of the area falls under semi-arid having maximum temperature up to 46 0C in summer and minimum occasionally falls below 0 0C with average rainfall of 400 mm. Wheat var. Raj 3077.was used as a test crop. The soils of the experiment was loamy sand in texture, low in available N (127.3 kg ha-1), available P (15.8 kg ha-1) and available K (174.7 kg ha-1). The soil was non saline with a pH value of 8.1 (Table-1). The experiment was laid out in split plot design consisting of four levels of compaction (control, 4, 8 and 12 passing of 500 kg manually driven roller) as main plot treatments and the combination of three levels of N (40, 80 and 120 kg N ha-1 through urea) and three levels of K (16.7, 33.3 and 50 kg K ha-1 applied as muriate of potash) as sub-plot treatments resulting thereby in 36 treatment combinations which were replicated four times. The variance ratio was calculated using the Fisher (1950) variance technique. The methods used for plant analysis of calcium and magnesium were those developled by Richards (1954) and for sulphur those developed by Tabatabai and Bremner (1970).

Table 1: Physico-chemical properties of experimental soil

Physical properties Mechanical composition Course sand (%) Fine sand (%) Silt (%) Clay (%) Textural class Particle density (Mgm-1) Bulk density (Mgm-1) Hydraulic conductivity (cmhr-1) Infiltration rate(cmhr-1) Moisture retention at /3 bar (%)
1

Chemical Properties Available N (kgha-1) 19.9 64.0 8.7 7.4 Ls 2.7 1.5 9.3 20.1 10.3 Available P (kgha-1) Available K (kgha-1) CEC [cmol(p+) kg-1] CaCO3 (%) Organic carbon (%) Total nitrogen (%) ECe (dSm-1 at 250C) pH (1:2 soil water suspension) 127.3 15.8 174.7 6.2 0.2 0.2 0.02 1.20 8.1

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS CALCIUM CONTENT AND UPTAKE

The maximum calcium content was recorded with twelve passing (C12) and minimum under no passing (C0). The corresponding increase of calcium content in grain was 3.3, 6.3 and 7.9 % and in straw

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it was 1.3, 2.0 and 3.3 %, observed due to C4, C8 and C12 treatments as compared to control. The data indicated (Table-2) that there was 3.0 and 3.6 % increase in Ca content of grain and 2.0 and 4.0 % increase in Ca content of straw of wheat due to N80 and N120 as compared to control. Similarly, Potassium levels also increased the calcium content of grain and straw of wheat. Maximum calcium content was obtained due to K60 and minimum under K20 treatment. Increase in uptake of Ca in grain and straw with increasing in levels of nitrogen and potassium were also reported by Satyanarayana and Ghildyal (1970), Ruzyczka et al.(1991) Sharma and Kumar, (1971) and Abedin et al., (1998).

Table-2 Effect of compaction, nitrogen and potassium levels on Ca content and uptake of wheat
Ca content (%) Treatments Compaction C0 C4 C8 C12 SEm + CD (0.05) Nitrogen N40 N80 N120 SEm + CD (0.05) Potassium K20 K40 K60 SEm + CD (0.05) 0.396 0.417 0.426 0.0043 0.0121 0.151 0.154 0.157 0.0008 0.0023 9.627 11.773 13.831 0.143 0.396 5.686 6.639 7.542 0.062 0.171 0.396 0.408 0.434 0.0043 0.0121 0.151 0.154 0.157 0.0008 0.0023 8.033 11.907 15.461 0.143 0.396 4.788 6.899 8.275 0.062 0.171 0.395 0.408 0.420 0.426 0.0082 0.0264 0.151 0.153 0.154 0.156 0.0012 0.0039 9.728 10.869 12.513 13.869 0.301 0.896 5.304 6.381 7.146 7.746 0.101 0.299 Grain Straw Ca uptake kg ha-1 Grain Straw

Data in Table-2 reveals that compaction had significant effect on calcium uptake in grain and straw of wheat. Maximum calcium uptake (13. 9 kg ha-1 for grain and 7.8 kg ha-1) was obtained with twelve passing of 500 kg iron roller (C12) and minimum (9.7 and 5.3 kg ha-1 in grain and straw, respectively) with no compaction (C0). The increasing levels of nitrogen and potassium also increased the calcium uptake of the wheat. Significant positive effects of compaction on calcium content and uptake was due to the increased availability of nitrogen in the soil, since compaction checks the leaching losses owing to high bulk density in sub-surface soil which in turn facilitated greater absorption of

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nitrogen by plants due to better root proliferation, growth and total dry matter yield. (Kirda et al., 1973, Ghuman et al., 1975, Gupta and Majumdar 1994 and Mathur et al. 2006). The beneficial effect of nitrogen application to a soil deficient in nitrogen was so pronounced that it counter balanced the dilution effect and finally increased the content in plant. The significant increase in nitrogen uptake by crop with increased rate of nitrogen application is due combined effect of high dry matter along with high nitrogen content (Singh and Anderson, 1973). Subsurface compaction and levels of potassium significantly increased the yield of tomato and chilli pepper crops and also potassium utilization efficiency were significantly influenced by the levels of compaction and potassium (Majumdar et. al. 2000)

MAGNESIUM CONTENT AND UPTAKE

The data presented in Table-3 reveals that the increasing levels of compaction increased the magnesium content of grain and straw of wheat. The C4, C8 andC12 levels of compaction increased the magnesium content to the extent of 0.31, 0.67 and 1.38 % in grain and 1.43, 1.79 and 2.00 % in straw respectively as compared to no compaction (C0). The increasing levels of nitrogen also increased the magnesium content of grain and straw. The corresponding increase due to N80 and N120 was 1.48 and 2.65 % in grain and 2.01 and 3.67 % in straw respectively as compared to N40 (40 kg ha-1). Similarly the increasing levels of potassium also increased the magnesium content of grain and straw of wheat. Maximum magnesium content was obtained with application of 50 kg K ha-1 and minimum under 16.7 kg K ha-1. The maximum magnesium uptake (3.69 and 3.53 kg ha-1 in grain and straw, respectively (Table3), respectively) were obtained with twelve passings of 500 kg iron roller (C12) and minimum (12.08 and 4.12 kg ha-1 in grain and straw, respectively) with no compaction (C0). The increasing levels of nitrogen and potassium increased the magnesium uptake of grain and straw significantly. Increase in uptake following compaction could be attributed to decrease leaching of these nutrients in compacted soils was also reported by Satyanarayana and Ghildyal (1970). Compaction checks the leaching losses owing to high bulk density in sub-surface soil, which in turn increase the magnesium absorption (Kirda et al.1973). Nitrogen application significantly increased the magnesium content and nitrogen was very

conspicuous in increasing magnesium content and uptake (Sharma and Kumar, 1971). The significant increase in magnesium uptake by crop with increase in rate of K application could be due to combined effect of high dry matter yield along with higher K content in straw (Majumdar and Das 1997 and Abedin et al., 1998).

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Table-3 Effect of compaction, nitrogen and potassium levels on Mg content and uptake of wheat
Mg content (%) Treatments Compaction C0 C4 C8 C12 SEm + CD (0.05) Nitrogen N40 N80 N120 SEm + CD (0.05) Potassium K20 K40 K60 SEm + CD (0.05) 0.1121 0.1126 0.1134 0.0003 0.0007 0.0696 0.0705 0.0716 0.0003 0.0006 2.719 3.177 3.680 0.442 0.116 2.629 3.035 3.452 0.027 0.076 0.1112 0.1128 0.1141 0.0003 0.0007 0.0694 0.0706 0.0721 0.0003 0.0006 2.252 3.291 4.052 0.042 0.116 2.177 3.172 3.796 0.027 0.076 0.1120 0.1124 0.1128 0.1136 0.0002 0.0006 0.0699 0.0706 0.0708 0.0713 0.0003 0.0009 2.752 2.989 3.350 3.686 0.055 0.162 2.442 2.944 3.264 3.534 0.038 0.112 Grain Straw Mg uptake kg ha-1 Grain Straw

SULPHUR CONTENT AND UPTAKE The data presented in Table-4 indicates that the increasing levels of compaction increased the sulphur content of grain and straw. The C4, C8 and C12 levels of compaction increased the S content by 1.8, 2.7 and 4.2 % in grain and 1.8, 2.1 and 3.0 % in straw, respectively as compared to no compaction (C0). Similarly, the increasing levels of nitrogen and potassium also increase the sulphur content of grain and straw of wheat.

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Table-4 Effect of compaction, nitrogen and potassium levels on S content and uptake of wheat
S content (%) Treatments Compaction C0 C4 C8 C12 SEm + CD (0.05) Nitrogen N40 N80 N120 SEm + CD (0.05) Potassium K20 K40 K60 SEm + CD (0.05) 0.33 0.341 0.349 0.002 0.0055 0.0879 0.0910 0.0942 0.0006 0.0016 7.999 9.728 11.386 0.122 0.338 3.297 3.823 4.533 0.046 0.129 0.325 0.338 0.358 0.002 0.0055 0.0893 0.0908 0.0928 0.0006 0.0016 6.594 9.840 12.706 0.122 0.338 2.797 4.081 4.893 0.046 0.129 0.333 0.339 0.342 0.347 0.0025 0.008 0.0895 0.0911 0.0914 0.0922 0.0054 0.0017 8.177 9.009 10.169 11..239 0.270 0.804 3.126 3.767 4.204 4.570 0.090 0.268 Grain Straw S uptake kg ha-1 Grain Straw

Results shows that the maximum sulphur uptake (11.24 and 4.57 kg ha-1 in grain and straw, respectively) were obtained with C12 and minimum (8.18 and 3.13 kg ha-1 in grain and straw,

respectively) under C0. In case of nitrogen and potassium application the maximum sulphur uptake were obtained with N120 and K60 and minimum under N40 and K20. The increase in sulphur uptake by crop with increasing rate of potassium application is due to combined effect of dry matter yield along with higher potassium content. Similar results were also reported earlier. (Spaldon and Karabinova, 1978; Sarkar et al., 1994, Abedin et al., 1998, and Mathur et al. 2006).

CONCLUSIONS
Twelve passing of iron roller had higher values in grain and straw yield over control as a result of improvement in physical properties of soil and consequently better root growth maintained higher moisture and nutrient availability. Since the C12 level of compaction led to favourable influence on soil properties i.e. in bulk density, moisture, storage capacity, and increase in capillary porosity of soil at the same time decrease in hydraulic conductivity and infiltration rate of soil results in increase in Ca Mg & S

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content and uptake in wheat crop. The light textured soils are prone to nutrient losses which gave best results regarding nitrogen and potassium utilization with the sub surface compaction.

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