Managing Biochar Application and Nitrogen Fertilization to Improve Wheat Production and Soil Nutrients Status under Clay Soil Conditions

Abstract

Biochar used lately as soil quality improver for nutritional, microbiological and physical properties. Under middle Nil delta alluvial clay soils conditions, during winter growing seasons of 2021/2022 and 2022/2023, a field experiment was conducted at El-Gemmeiza Agricultural Research Station, ARC, El- Gharbeya Governorate, Egypt located at (Lat. 30؛ 48´ 752" and Long. 31؛ 81 025"). This study looked at plant growth, leaf chlorophyll content, wheat productivity, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and grain quality of wheat cultivar Sakha 95 were affected by biochar (0 and 12.5 m3/ha) and nitrogen fertilization levels i.e., 0, 50, 75 and 100 of the recommended rates (equals 0, 125, 187.5, and 250 kg N/ha) in the form of urea (46% N). Split-plot statistical design was applied, the biochar rates distributed in the main plots, whereas nitrogen fertilization levels randomized in the sub-plots. The obtained results showed that the combination between treated wheat plants grown in clay soil with biochar at 12.5 m3/ha and fertilizing plants with 100% of recommended N fertilization rate (250 kg N/ha) was the best treatment for increasing, leaf chlorophyll content (LCC), i.e., chlorophyll a, b, and total a+b after 75 days from sowing, grain yield (GY), straw and biological yields (StY, BY), harvesting index (HI), and plant height
(PH), nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents in grain and straw (N, P and K %) and their uptake, the measured data includes total protein in grains as well as the available N, P, and K contents, and organic matter (OM %) in soils after harvesting of wheat in both growing seasons as soil quality parameters due to application of Biochar as unique soil improvement
material. Treatments application produced improvement by 54.81%, 24.30%, and 36.5 % as relative increase in grain yield (GY), straw yield (StY), and biological yield (BY) ha-1, respectively (as average of the two growing seasons) compared with unfertilized control wheat plots. On the other side, there were no significant differences for the interaction between 75 % of the recommended N rate combined with Biochar at application rate 12.5 m3 ha-1 and 100 % of the recommended N fertilization rate without Biochar for all above mentioned data in both growing seasons.