CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR IMPROVING WHEAT PRODUCTIVITY UNDER SALINE SODIC SOIL CONDITIONS

The current work represents a trial towards improving wheat productivity grown on a saline sodic soil in El-Tina plain, North Sinai. Fulfilling such an objective was executed through three approaches all of them aim at increasing the plant tolerance for salinity. The first approach involved supplying the plant with its N requirement from different sources i.e. readily available N (urea), slow release N fertilizers i.e. urea formaldehyde and sulfur coated urea each at a rate of 114 kg N ha 1 beside of a compost of plant residues at a rate of 119 mg ha1. The second approach involved inoculating the wheat seeds with Azospirillium brasilence No. 40 (salt tolerant bacteria) while the third approach involved spraying the grown plants with the growth osmoregulator proline at a rate of 950 L ha1 ( 30 mg proline L1 ). Results revealed that the studied approached could succeed when applied solely in increasing wheat yield and its attributes, however, the combined treatment of applying compost, inoculation with Azospirillium sp and spraying the grown plants with proline was extremely important for maximizing grain yield and increasing uptake of the different nutrtive elements i.e. N, P, K, Fe, Mn and Zn.