Study the Effects of Super Absorbent Application on Maize (Zea mays L.) under Drought Stress Condition

Super absorbent polymers are one of the new methods used mainly in the agricultural systems to decrease the damage effects of drought stress in the field crops. Due to investigation the effects of super absorbent application in dropping the drought stress effects on maize an experiment was conducted in the farm of faculty of agriculture research at university of Zabol. Drought stress was applied as main factor in three levels: irrigation at 90%fc, irrigation at 70%fc and irrigation at 50%fc. Super absorbent was defined as subplot in three levels: check (0kg.h-1), 50kg.h-1, and 100kg.h-1. Super absorbents ware planted at depth 30cm below the culture lines. Results of variance analysis showed significant differences were observed among drought levels and super absorbent levels as well for all traits. Mean comparisons of simple effects indicated that the highest means in all traits belonged to irrigation at 90%Fc. Also the use of 100kg.h-1 super absorbent caused significant increase in yield and yield component. Interaction effects showed in almost all traits there were no significant differences among super absorbent application at 90%Fc. But the use of different amount of super absorbent caused reduction in drought effects on yield and yield components in 70%fc and 50%fc. It seems the highest efficiency of application super absorbent is observed when plants are influenced by moderate stresses and in severe stresses they might not be useful to undergo drought in corn.