Response of Sugar Beet (Beta vulgaris L.) Growth, Yield and Yield Components to Compost and Phosphorus Fertilizers

Wael. A. Marajan; Baha Eldin. M. Idris; Abubaker Haroun Mohamed Adam

doi:10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-21-3880

Full Text Article Abstract Introduction Materials and Methods Results and Discussion Conclusion and Recommendations References

Response of Sugar Beet (Beta vulgaris L.) Growth, Yield and Yield Components to Compost and Phosphorus Fertilizers

Wael. A. Marajan¹, Baha Eldin. M. Idris², Abubaker Haroun Mohamed Adam³

¹Department of Soil and Water Science, College of Agriculture, University of Bahri.

²Department of Crop Science, College of Agriculture, University of Bahri.

³Department of Crop Science, College of Agriculture, University of Bahri.

Abstract

Sugar beet is one of the sugar crops which widely grown in different regions of the world due to its advantages over Sugarcane. Several studies were conducted in Sudan to assess its adaptation and economic value. However, the aim of this experiment was to study the effect of application of compost and different levels of phosphorus fertilizer and their combination on Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) growth attributes, yield and yield components. The study was conducted during the winter season 2018 –2019 at the farm of the College of Agriculture, University of Bahri, Alkadaro-Khartoum State, Sudan. The experiment was arranged in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications and six treatments, namely the Compost (5t./ha.), Phosphorous (P₂O₅₎ (88kg./ha.), P₂O₅ (176 kg./ha.), Compost (5t./ha.)+P₂O₅ (88kg./ha.), Compost (5t./ha.)+ P₂O₅ (176Kg./ha.) and the Control (C) respectively. All cultural practices were carried out timely according to the recommendations of the Agricultural Research Centre in Sudan. Then the data pertaining the following agronomic traits were recorded, the leaf number; leaf dry weight (g), leaf area index (LAI) (cm), root diameter (RD) (cm) and root fresh weight (RFW) (g). The results of statistical analysis revealed the application of compost in combination with phosphorus displayed significant increase at 5% level for the leaf number (22.75), leaf area index (5.23), leaf dry weight(36.78), root diameter(69.67) and root fresh weight (422.68), followed by the application of compost alone compared to the control and other treatments. The study concludes that the combination of compost and mineral fertilizer (P₂O₅) proved to increase all Sugar beet growth and yield parameters.

Author Contributions

Received 23 Jun 2021; Accepted 19 Aug 2021; Published 25 Aug 2021;

Academic Editor: Prem Narain, 29278 Glen Oaks Blvd. W. Farmington Hills, MI 48334-2932 USA.

Checked for plagiarism: Yes

Review by: Single-blind

License

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Competing interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation:

Wael. A. Marajan, Baha Eldin. M. Idris, Abubaker Haroun Mohamed Adam (2021) Response of Sugar Beet (Beta vulgaris L.) Growth, Yield and Yield Components to Compost and Phosphorus Fertilizers. Journal of Agronomy Research - 4(1):14-22. https://doi.org/10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-21-3880

Download as RIS, BibTeX, Text (Include abstract )

DOI 10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-21-3880

Introduction

Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) is one of the main raw materials for sugar production in many countries. It is considered to be the second most important crop in the world, after sugarcane for sucrose production. This crop can be grown in a variety of climatic conditions, but it is primarily grown in the temperate latitudes between 30-60⁰C N¹. It can be grown successfully on a range of soil types. On a textural classification, in all types of clay, silt, sand and organic soils, but the production may be limited to soils with excessive wetness in spring and autumn ².

Despite the importance of sugar beet as an industrial cash crop, its productivity remains low because many farmers luck the technical knowhow of its production; and therefore, it became necessary to pay great attention to this point and look for naturally safe stimulating growth substances which can markedly influence plant growth and yield parameters³. However, the application of nitrogen fertilizer is considered as an important practice that determines sugar beet growth and production⁴. But, compost appears to be less understood as a contributor to soil organic matter and overall soil ecology and management. Nevertheless, it supposed to become another tool which can be used along with the cover crops, animal manure and other management strategies⁵. However, in this regard, the most important point to be considered is the decomposition of Phosphorous which depends on many variables. The active composting process leading to a stable product can be completed in a matter of days, weeks or months, and then followed by a maturation phase which may take weeks to months to results in finished mature compost ⁶.

Studies showed that compost contains important elements such as nitrogen 0.3% – 1.5% (3g to 15g per kg of compost), phosphorus 0.1% – 1.0% (1g to 10g per kg of compost); and potassium 0.3% – 1.0% (3g to 10g per kg of compost)⁷. Therefore, it improves the status of the mineral nutrients in plants, particularly the nitrogen, phosphate and potassium⁸. Generally, the application of organic fertilizers is one of the important practical measures to improve soil fertility, providing the necessary nutrients for crops, improving soil physico-chemical properties, and organic matter⁹.

It is very important to understand the problem of phosphorus in agriculture, particularly its various forms in the soils, transformation, mobilization, and the conditions for the most effective use of phosphorus ^{10, 11}

There are a lot of information on the various forms of various phosphates and their quantitative content in different soils. The accumulation of mobile phosphates and phosphates of loose-bound and the different-base fractions in the soil are the basis for increasing sugar beet yields. The actual concentration of soluble phosphorous in most soils is relatively low—on the order of 1μM—because of several factors, among these the propensity of phosphorous to form insoluble complexes¹¹. Generally, a wide variety of interacting factors such as soil formation, climatic conditions, and the several processes like weathering, mineralization, desorption, immobilization, adsorption, precipitation, runoff, erosion, organic matter, clay content, soil mineralogy and soil pH etc. determine the availability of phosphorus in the soils³.

In plants, phosphorous is found largely as phosphate esters-including the sugar-phosphates, which play such an important role in photosynthesis, intermediary metabolism and energy metabolism of cells¹². The optimal level of mobile phosphorus content in the soil is found to be about 30–45 mg·kg^–1 with the sum of loose-bound and different-base 385–445 mg·kg^–1 of soil^13,14. It is found that nitrogen and phosphorous application led to an increase in leaf area and biomass. On the other hand, the application of nitrogen increases the total dry weight of the plants and reaching to the maximum total dry weight. Moreover, addition of phosphorus and potassium triggers microorganisms' activities to improve the compost quality, but the soil enrichment with phosphorus over the optimal level leads to unproductive costs and low availability of soil phosphorus¹⁵. Furthermore, the application of FYM + NPK increases the content of organic carbon in the soil, the total content of nitrogen, P and K concentrations¹⁶.

It worth mentioning that most of the studies on sugar beet crops concentrated on how to increase the root and sugar productivity. Therefore, many researchers have studied the effects of different fertilization levels and/or different growth regulators. This experiment aimed to study the response of sugar beet growth parameters, yield and yield components to the application of compost and phosphorus fertilizes under saline soil conditions.

Materials and Methods

The experiment was conducted during the winter season of 2016–2017 in the demonstration farm of the College of Agriculture, University of Bahri, Khartoum North, Alkadaro, Sudan (Latitudes 15⁰.44ʹ-15⁰.45ʹ N, Longitudes 32⁰ 35ʹ 32⁰ 39ʹ E. and Altitudes 398m above the sea level). The area is located in semi-arid zone, characterized by long period of dry season, hot climate in summer with mean daily maximum temperature between 30 -45°C, and cool in winter, with temperature between 25-10^oC. Usually it rains in summer and the annual average rainfall ranges between 0 -100mm, and the relative humidity between16% - 50%. The soil is moderate to strong alkaline, with pH 7.5-8; EC 1.1-8.3 dSm^-^{1 17}.

This study adopted the Randomized Complete Block (RCBD) experimental design with three replications and six treatments; compost 5t/ha, phosphorus 88Kg P₂O₅/ha, phosphorus 176 Kg P₂O₅/ha, compost 5t/ha + phosphorus 88Kg P₂O₅/ha, compost 5t/ha + phosphorus 176Kg P₂O₅/ha and control which referred to (O, P₁, P₂, P₁O, P₂O and C) respectively. Soil was prepared by disk plough, harrowed, leveled, and ridged. Plot size was 5x4 m; spacing between ridges was 70 cm and 15 cm between plants. Seeds were manually planted on 13/12/2016 by placing two seeds /hole and thinned to one plant/hole. Frequent irrigation was carried out every 7-10 days. Harvesting was done on 7/5/2017. Data were collected by taking three plants at random from the two outer rows of each plot after 7, 10, 13, and 16 weeks after sowing (WAS). The following parameters were studied, the Leaves number, Leaf dry weight (g), Leaf Area Index, Root diameter (cm), Root fresh weight (g), Yield and yield components. The data were analyzed, using Statistic 8 software Program.

Results and Discussion

Results in table 1 showed significant differences in the leaf number of sugar beet as influenced by different treatments of compost and phosphorus. The highest leaf number was obtained in treatment (P2+O) followed by treatment (P1+O), whereas the lowest one was recorded in treatment (P1)¹⁷. The increase of leaf number may be due to nutrients availability which released during the decomposition of compost, especially the nitrogen which plays a vital role in plant growth. The available nitrogen that released in the soil from the compost mineralization process increases the shoot/root ratio of sugar beet. Also the solubility of phosphorus in soil can be increased due to the presence of compost and phosphate which provide the plant with energy. This result was in confirmative with the result obtained by Nshimiyimana¹⁸ who stated that when sugar beet was evaluated by using cow dung as organic manure and NPK as mineral fertilizer; the differences among treatments were significant and high leaf number after four weeks was observed. Michel, et. Al.; ¹⁹ suggested that the organic manure can benefit crops in various ways through the provision of nitrogen in the early season and more slowly during the remaining growing period.

Table 1. Effect of compost and phosphorus fertilizers and their combinations on leaves No. of sugar beet (ALkadaro-Sudan, 2016/2017).

Time Treatment.	7WAS	10 WAS	13 WAS	16 WAS
Control	8.22 ^bc	17.89 ^ab	25.67 ^ab	31.89 ^bc
O	9.33 ^ab	20.22 ^a	26.89 ^a	34.89 ^ab
P₁	7.67 ^c	16.55 ^b	22.67 ^b	27.89 ^d
P₂	8.33 ^bc	21.00 ^a	25.45 ^ab	28.89 ^cd
P₁ + O	9.89 ^a	19.67 ^ab	26.00 ^ab	33.89 ^ab
P₂+ O	9.56 ^ab	20.31 ^a	24.78 ^ab	36.33 ^a
SE+	0.673	1.563	1.583	1.514
C.V	9.33	9.93	7.68	5.74