Maize response to water, salinity and nitrogen levels: soil and plant ions accumulation

In the present study, some nutritional imbalances, specific ion toxicity and yield-ion concentration relationships in maize under water, nitrogen (N) and salinity stresses were assessed. Effect of different levels of irrigation water (I1=1.0ETc+0.25ETc as leaching, I2 =0.75I1 and I3 =0.5I1) as main plot, salinity of irrigation water (S1=0.6, S2= 2.0 and S3=4.0 dS m-1) as sub-plot and N fertilizer rates (N1=0, N2=150 and N3=300 kg N ha-1) as sub-sub-plot on maize (cv SC 704) were investigated in a split-split-plot design with three replications during 2009 and 2010. Results showed that salts accumulated in soil were 28.4% higher in I2 compared with other irrigation treatments. Soil nitrate concentration was statistically higher under I3 and S1 treatments (83% and 10%, respectively) compared with other irrigation and salinity levels. There was no K+ deficiency caused by salinity; however, salinity resulted in statistically lower K+/Na+ compared with no saline conditions. Plants took up 25% higher N in I2 compared with other irrigation levels. Furthermore, N uptake by plants decreased by an average of 18% under salinity condition indicating that higher N application rate above the required level under saline water application put the environment at the risk of groundwater N contamination. Results of this study confirmed the fact that Na+ accumulation in soil was more detrimental than Cl- accumulation for maize irrigated with saline water. Besides, according to threshold values for soil ions, the optimum levels of irrigation and N fertilizer for maize might be lower under saline water application. Furthermore, based on the grain yield reduction coefficient, maize required a higher level of K+ and K+/Na+ under deficit saline water irrigation for avoiding yield losses.