الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract To investigate the effect of foliar methanol application on wheat plants, two field experiments were conducted in winter seasons of 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 in El-Bouseily Research Station, Agricultural Research Center (ARC) at El-Behira Governorate, and at the Research and Experimental Station Farm of Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University at Shalakan, Kalubiya Governorate. Each experiment was designed in complete randomized blocks and contained 10 treatments which were the combinations of three methanol concentrations (10, 20 and 30% v/v), and three spraying intervals being 15, 30 and 45 days (7, 4 and 3 spraying times, respectively) as well as the control treatment, i.e. tap water every 15 day. Methanol spraying schedule was started at 40 days after planting and continued up to the end of March (at grain milky stage). Results showed that no phytotoxicity effects at any treatment and location. Methanol treatments increased number of total tillers, number of fertile tillers, number of leaves, leaf area index (LAI), total chlorophyll concentration, number of spikes per m2, number of spikelets per spike, number of grains per spike, weight of grains per spike, 1000-grain weight, grain yield per plant and straw yield per plant, grain yield per feddan, harvest index, biological yield, migration coefficient and radiation use efficiency (RUE) of wheat than the control. The beneficial impact of foliar application of methanol on growth, yield and yield attributes of wheat was mostly concomitant to the reduction in spraying intervals and increase in methanol concentrations up to 30%. Therefore, methanol 30% applied 7 times with 15-day intervals treatment gave the highest values and increased number of tillers per plant, number of fertile tillers, number of leaves, leaf area index (LAI) and total chlorophyll concentration by 15.0, 16.3, 8.9, 13.2 and 17.8% respectively than the control and increased grain yield per feddan, harvest index, biological yield, migration coefficient and radiation use efficiency (RUE) than those of control by 19.8, 6.8, 10.5, 9.6 and 8.9%, respectively. Enhancing impacts of methanol foliar application on all growth and productivity assessments of wheat plant in this investigation were more pronounced under Shalakan environment conditions than under El- Bouseily ones. Such difference verify that the fruitful response of C3 plants to methanol application is mostly climatically dependent. |