Growth, Yield and Water Use Effeciency of Forage Sorghum as Affected by Npk Fertilizer and Deficit Irrigation

Drought stress (DS) is an important limiting factor for crop growth and production in some regions of the world. Limitation in water availability precludes optimal irrigation in some production regions. Therefore, investigations on the interaction of other factors to mitigate the DS to varying degree are important. Two field experiments were conducted in the experimental farm of the National Research Centre, Shalakan, Kalubia Governorate, Egypt, during 2004 and 2005 summer seasons to evaluate the interactions between N, P, K rates and optimal vs. deficit irrigation regimes on biomass yield as well as water use efficiency (WUE) of forage sorghum. Omission of the 4th irrigation significantly decreased the biomass of sorghum c.v. Pioneer, as compared to that of the plants receiving optimal irrigation or subject to omission of the 2nd irrigation. The biomass yield increased with an increase in NPK fertilizer rates. Plant height and leaf area also decreased by omitting the 2nd irrigation as compared to that of the plants under optimal irrigation, and further declined with omission of the 4th irrigation. The biomass of the plants (dry weight basis) that received the high N, P, K rates was greater by 26%, 29%, and 35% as compared to that of the plants that received no N, P, K fertilizers, under optimal irrigation, omission of the 2nd, and omission of the 4th irrigation, respectively. The corresponding increases in water use efficiency (based on fresh weight yield) were 37%, 42%, and 55%.