Effect of Gypsum Application on the Behavior of Some Rice Varieties under Salt Affected Soil Conditions

Abstract

Rice cultivation in the salt-affected soil in northern Delta regions is an important issue to confront soil deterioration. Therefore, adopting rice varieties of lower water demand and maintaining optimum productivity is becoming one of the national issues coincident with the current circumstances and expected water shortage. For this purpose, the behavior of some rice genotypes during the two summer seasons of 2018 and 2019 under gypsum amended salt-affected soil conditions and their relations is of interest. However, gypsum application positively enhanced rice varieties' growth parameters, photosynthetic pigments, relative water content, leaves potassium content, yield, yield attributes and crop water productivity (WP), meanwhile leaves sodium content, proline content, and Na + /K + ratio influenced negatively. In addition, relative reduction in the soil layer's salt content and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), whose recorded values seemed to be affected predominantly by the crop duration period. On the other hand, Egyptian hybrid one (EHR1) rated the highest grain yield, followed by Giza 178 with the corresponding values of 4.66 and 4.26 t fed. -1 , respectively. Despite that, Sakha 107 followed by Giza 177 rated the highest water productivity varieties with the corresponding values of 0.86 and 0.80 kg m -3 , respectively.