Effect of zinc foliar application at different physiological growth stages on yield and quality of wheat under sandy soil conditions

Micronutrients are critical factor for plant production. The main target of this study was to evaluate the effect of rates and time of zinc foliar application on growth, nutrient contents, yield and its components of wheat Sakha94 and Gemmieza9 cultivars under sandy soils conditions. In this regard two field experiments were conducted during 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 seasons at Ismailia Agricultural Experimental Station of the Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Ismailia Governorate, Egypt.Statistical analysis of the illustrated data indicated that all studied characters were significantly affected by zinc foliar application. The highest values of grain and straw yield were resulted under two sprays as compared to the other treatments of zinc application. The results showed that there were high significant differences among varieties in response to zinc application for all studied characteristics except No. of grains/spike in the first season. Gemmieza9 cultivar surpassed Sakha94 for all studied traits of yield component. The interaction between zinc foliar treatments and the two cultivars had highly significant effects for all studied characters except No. of spikes/m2 in the first season only. The grains content from N, Zn and Fe were significantly affected due to Zn foliar application and there were significant differences between the two wheat cultivars for their grain nutrients content in their responding to Zn foliar application in both seasons. The Gemmieza9 cultivar gave the highest N grain content, while Sakha94 gave the highest Zn and Fe grain content in both seasons. Also, the data of grains nutrient content were significantly affected by the interaction between treatments of Zn foliar spray and wheat cultivars in both seasons, where the twice foliar spray of Zn gave a higher content of grains from N and Zn, while in spraying once gave a higher iron grains content in both cultivars and seasons.Generally, it can be concluded from this study that Gemmieza 9 wheat cultivar achieved the highest values of grain and straw yields and yield attributes by zinc as foliar application under sandy soil condition. In addition, the long-term of zinc foliar application has the most beneficial effects on grain yield among the other types of fertilization