Author(s)

Bakry Ahmed Bakry^1*, Omar Maghawry Ibrahim², Abdelraouf Ramadan Eid³, Elham Abdelmoneim Badr¹

¹Field Crops Research Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Egypt.
²Plant Production Department, Arid Lands Cultivation Research Institute, City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), New Borg El-Arab, Egypt.
³Water Relations and Field Irrigation Department, National Research Center, Giza, Egypt.

In order to examine the application of different soil and foliar organic fertilizers as well as biofertilizing flax under sandy soil conditions, two field experiments were carried out at the Research and Production Station of the National Research Centre (NRC), Al Nubaria district, El-Behaira Governorate, Egypt during 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 winter seasons. The trials aimed to study the effect of humic acid (HA) as low cost natural fertilizer, inoculation with mycorrhiza, and biocharcoal on on yield, quality and water use efficiency of flax variety (Amon) under newly reclaimed sandy soil. The treatments consisted of HA (25 kg/feddan), inoculation with mycorrhiza (1 kg/ feddan), and biochar (4 tons/feddan) and all the combinations among the treatments. Results showed that the treatment combination of (humic acid + mycorrhiza + biochar) was significantly superior compared to all the other treatments in number of capsules/plant, biological yield/plant (g), seed yield/plant (g), seed yield (kg/feddan), straw yield (tons/feddan), oil percent (%), and oil yield (kg/feddan). However, it gave the highest fruiting zone length (cm) but not significantly different from (mycorrhiza + biochar) and (humic acid + biochar), also it gave the highest seed index (g) but not significantly different from humic acid and (humic acid + mycorrhiza). The treatment combination of (humic acid + biochar) gave the highest plant height (cm), technical stem length (cm), and number of branches/plant.

Flax, Humic Acid, Biochar, Mycorrhiza, Water Use Efficiency

Bakry, A. B. , Ibrahim, O. , Eid, A. and Badr, E. (2014) Effect of Humic Acid, Mycorrhiza Inoculation, and Biochar on Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Flax under Newly Reclaimed Sandy Soil. Agricultural Sciences, 5, 1427-1432. doi: 10.4236/as.2014.514153.