Effects of Deficit Irrigation Strategy and Foliar Application of Salicylic Acid on Growth of Jatropha curcas L.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Soil and Water Dept., Fac. of Agri., Suez Canal Univ., Egypt. 41522

2 Hort. Dept., Fac. of Agri., Suez Canal Univ., Egypt, 41522

Abstract

At present, irrigated agriculture will take place under inadequate water incompetency. In this research the
interaction between deficit irrigation (DI) and spraying Jatropha shrubs grown in sandy soil with salicylic acid (SA) to
have a significant impact on increasing its adoption to water-limited areas was studied. Irrigation process included three
levels of water regime, DI. In the first level, soil was irrigated up to full field capacity (0.0-DI), in the second, soil was
irrigated up to 0.65 of full field capacity (0.35-DI), and up to 0.4 of full field capacity for the third level, representing
0.60-DI. Also, Jatropha plants were foliar sprayed with three levels of SA as 0.0, 5.0 and 10 mM. SA application at the
rate of 5 mM enhanced vegetative growth. The optimum treatment on growth characters was found when plants
irrigated with fresh water at 0.35-DI without significant difference with those at 0.0-DI treatments. Also, SA application
either at 5.0 or 10.0 mM resulted in negative impact on plant growth, when plants subjected to 0-DI. The obtained
results indicated that, following 0.35-DI strategy, great amounts of irrigation water could be saved and reached
minimally 206 L plant-1 years-1 at 2nd year (144 m3 feddan -1).

Keywords