Legume Research

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Legume Research, volume 39 issue 1 (february 2016) : 52-60

Effects of irrigation, soil compaction and fertilization treatments on physiological – vegetative characteristics and root development of soybean 

Halil Kirnak1, Zeki Gokalp*1, Ergün Dogan2, Osman Çopur
1<p>Harran University, Agricultural Faculty,&nbsp;Field Crops Department, Sanliurfa, Turkey.</p>
Cite article:- Kirnak1 Halil, Gokalp*1 Zeki, Dogan2 Erg&uuml;n, &Ccedil;opur Osman (2016). Effects of irrigation, soil compaction and fertilization treatments on physiological &ndash; vegetative characteristics and root development of soybean . Legume Research. 39(1): 52-60. doi: 10.18805/lr.v39i1.8864.

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of different soil compaction levels (non-compacted control, low compaction, high compaction), irrigation management practices (conventional furrow and alternate furrow) and nitrogenous fertilizer levels (60, 90, 120 kg ha-1) on vegetative characteristics (dry biomass production, plant height, number of branch and number of pod per plant, height of the first pod, leaf area index, stem diameter), physiological characteristics (leaf relative water content, leaf chlorophyll content and leaf temperature) and root development through 0 - 80 cm soil profile of soybean grown in Harran Plain of Turkey. Experiments were conducted in Sanliurfa Province of Turkey in split-split plots experimental design with 3 replications during the years of 2006 and 2007. Irrigation program was created by using KanSched simulation model. The amount of applied irrigation water in conventional and alternate furrow systems in 2006 and 2007 were measured as 435.61 and 291.59 mm, and 429.51 and 271.72 mm, respectively. While the highest yield (947.8 kg ha-1) was observed in control treatment of the year 2006, conventional furrow system had the highest yield (2099.3 kg ha-1) in the year 2007. Soil compaction, irrigation and nitrogenous fertilization in general had significant effects on entire vegetative characteristics investigated in the present study. Increasing compaction levels yielded decreasing plant height, stem diameter and leaf area indexes. Biomass production increased with increasing nitrogen doses. Results indicated that negative impacts of soil compaction in agricultural fields due to traffic and various other reasons could be eliminated with proper irrigation and fertilization implementations. 


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