Comparative Effect Of Soil And Foliar Applied Feso4 And Znso4 For Maize Growth Under Saline Conditions

Maize is the essential cereal crop and which is
the basic necessity of food and oil for human consumption. Throughout the world it is also used as
feed for livestock but this crop is usually susceptible
to salinity. Growth and productivity of crop inhibit
by the salinity that is the most important abiotic
stress and it is one of the world’s oldest and most
commonly distributed environmental challenges.
With the objective to combat salinity stress in maize
a pot culture study was conducted to investigate the
yield performance of the selected maize genotypes
against salinity using different soil and foliar application of FeSO4 and ZnSO4. Treatments included of
all possible combinations of soil application of Zn
(2.65 and 5.30g ZnSO4 per pot) and Fe application of
(3.00 and 6.00 g FeSO4 per pot) and foliar application of Zn (17 and 34 g L-1 as ZnSO4) and Fe (14 and
30g L-1 as FeSO4). The foliar application of FeSO4
and ZnSO4 was applied on maize foliage at 5th leaf
stage. Foliar spraying of micronutrients under these
conditions could be much more efficient than soil application of nutrients to the crops. By the Use of foliar spraying of micronutrients plant tolerance to salinity by alleviating Na and Cl injury to plants can be
increased. It was concluded that in saline soil maize
yield may improve by the application of ZnSO4 and
FeSO4 and increase of the concentration in maize
grains can improve human nourishment.