Management strategy for improving growth and mineral status of Moringa grown under water stress conditions

Water scarcity and drought are the main constraints of crop production. Many technologies have been developed to cope with this environmental problem. So improve crop management under limited amount of available water is a measure issue to maximize the return by unit of water (water productivity). To achieve the aforementioned objectives, a pot experiment was conducted in the greenhouse of the National Research Centre at summer season of 2013 to evaluate the effect of foliar application of potassium sulphate (K2SO4), mono potassium phosphate (KHPO4) and ferrous sulphate (Fe SO4) at the rate of 1% in addition to distilled water as a control treatment. on growth, and mineral status of Moringa plants grown under different water regimes (irrigation after depletion of 40 % of the maximum water holding capacity of the soil (W.H.C.) i.e. normal water supply, 60 % of (W.H.C.) i.e. moderate soil moisture stress and 80 % of (W.H.C.) i.e. severe moisture stress. However, severe moisture stress cause depression in growth characters i.e. plant height, number of branches, dry weight of stem, leaves, top and whole plant. The highest dry weight of root, stem, leaves, top and whole plant were obtained by irrigation after depletion of 40 % available soil moisture. On the other hand, the dry weight of the root and shoot/root ratio was positively responded with the decreased in availability of moisture before irrigation. Application of foliar fertilizers enhanced all the vegetative growth characters of Moringa plants i.e. plant height, number of branches, root, and stem, leaves and whole plant fresh weight. Data also showed that MKP treatment surpass all the other foliar treatments (except for top/root ratio) which were recorded under Fe treatment. The lowest values were recorded in plants sprayed with distilled water. Moreover, Increasing the percentage of moisture depletion before irrigation, significantly decreased the percentage of phosphorus, potassium and magnesium in Moringa plants. On the contrary water stress treatments significantly increase the content of N, Ca and Na. Application of foliar fertilizers enhancing the content of N, P, K and Mg.