The Effective Role of Cobalt in Increasing the Nitrogen Absorption Efficiency in Lentil Crop

Authors

  • Nadia Gad Plant Nutrition Dept., National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
  • M.R. Abdel-Moez Plant Nutrition Dept., National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
  • M. E. Fekry Ali Plant Nutrition Dept., National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

Keywords:

Lens culinaris, Nitrogenases activity, Vegetative growth, Seed yield, Root nodules, Mineral contents, Seed nutritional profiles

Abstract

A field experiments was carried out to evaluate the effective role and importance of cobalt nutrient treatments (0 and 10 ppm as soil applications) on parameters of nodulation rate, vegetative growth, seed yield, mineral contents and nutritional quality of lentil plants of Giza 9 cultivar grown under different nitrogen fertilization rates (100, 75, 50 and 25% of the recommended dose of nitrogen). The experiment was conducted at the Experimental and Production Station, National Research Centre, El-Noubaria region, Behera governorate, Egypt, under newly reclaimed sandy soil conditions and drip irrigation system during season of 2020 and 2021. A split-plot design with three replicates was used. The obtained results summarized that cobalt treatment at 10 ppm as soil application resulted in significant increases in all studied parameters of nodulation rate, vegetative growth, seed yield, mineral contents and
nutritional quality of lentil plants. The nitrogenase enzymes activity was paralleled with and related to the increase of nodule numbers per plant and fresh and dry weights of nodules on lentil roots. The obtained results strongly revealed that increasing nitrogen fertilizer levels from 25 to 100% led to progressive increases in all analyzed traits. Significant differences were found among different nitrogen
application levels. The interaction effect between cobalt applications and different nitrogen fertilization levels recorded significant differences on all studied characters in lentil plants. Experimental treatments of cobalt at 10 ppm combined with nitrogen at 100% of the recommended level gave the highest values of all measured parameters. While the lowest values were illustrated when cobalt at 0 ppm plus nitrogen fertilizer at 25% were applied. As a beneficial element, cobalt has the ability to increase nitrogen efficiency and save almost 25% of nitrogen fertilizer application.

Published

2022-11-30