PHYSIOLOGICAL, AGRONOMICAL AND QUALITY RESPONSE OF BREAD WHEAT TO PHOSPHORUS APPLICATION UNDER DRYLAND CONDITION

Abstract

An understanding of physiological and agronomical traits associated with high grain yield and efficiency of phosphorus use is important to the improvement of genotypes under dryland conditions. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the influence of differentiated phosphorus fertilization rate on the yield and quality of wheat at the experimental farm, University of Dicle, Diyarbakir, Turkey during 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 growing seasons. The experiment was consisted of five treatments comprising of five phosphorus (P2O5) levels (0 kg ha(-1), 30 kg ha(-1), 60 kg ha(-1), 90 kg ha(-1) and 120 kg ha(-1)). It was observed that phosphorus levels exhibited significant differences to the grain numbers per m(2), grain weight and grain yield ha', as well as to starch content and protein content in the first season. There was no significant effect of phosphorus on all studied grain yield and quality characters in the second season. The improvement in grain yield was significantly associated with the increase in the values of grain number, accordingly, the coefficients of grain number and grain yield showed that grain number had a positive and direct effect on grain yield suggesting a criteria trait to enhance yield. It was concluded that the highest grain yield of wheat crop was obtained with 120 kg ha(-1) P2O5 and it showed comparatively better performance than another treatment under investigation.