Wheat performance is affected by the substitution of chemical fertilisers with animal manure under different soil moisture regimes
Abstract
The intensification of the effects of climate change and the necessity of using climate-resilient methods and improving nutritional conditions, replacing chemical fertilisers with organic fertilisers and saving water consumption should be heightened in semi-arid regions. A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different doses of NPK chemical fertilisers (CH0: no use of NPK fertiliser, CH50: application of 50% of the recommended dose of NPK, CH100: application of 100% of the recommended dose of NPK) and different levels of animal manure (0, 5, and 10 t ha–1: FYM0, FYM5 and FYM10) under different soil moisture conditions (full irrigation (FI) and rainfed with one supplementary irrigation at the spike stage (SI)) on winter wheat performance in Hamedan area. Under FI conditions, the lateral growth of the canopy increased strongly with the use of chemical fertilisers. However, the longitudinal growth and internode distances increased with the combined application of chemical and organic fertilisers. Under SI, the application of FYM10 + CH50 had a greater effect on yield components. Grain weight decreased under both irrigation regimes with the increase in the consumption of NPK fertilisers. The highest grain yield (4790 kg ha–1) was obtained for plants grown under FI + FYM10 + CH100 and plants grown with FYM10 + CH50 (4425 ha–1). Under the SI conditions, the highest yield was recorded with the utilization of FYM10 + CH50 (2644), and FYM10 + CH0 (2549), and the lowest yield was recorded under FYM0. Taken together, the use of chemical fertilisers under FI conditions is inevitable to increase the grain yield, and the replacement of NPK fertiliser with the current applied amounts of animal fertilisers could not be adequate to improve the grain yield considerably.
