102 IPNI Interpretive Summaries
Eastern Europe/Central Asia <strong>and</strong> Middle East <strong>Group</strong> Middle East Dr. Munir Rusan Balanced Fertilization of Major Crops in Egypt Project Leader: Mohamed M. El-Fouly, National Research Centre Fertilization Technology Department, Dokki, Cairo- Egypt. E-mail: mohelfouly@link.net Project Cooperators: El-Zanty Abu El Nour, Adel Andel Chalet, <strong>and</strong> Fuad Al-Said Abdullah In Egypt, application of mineral fertilizers is highly skewed towards N, which has lead to the depletion of other nutrients like K, P, <strong>and</strong> micronutrients in many soils. The objectives of this project were to: (1) determine the effect of balanced fertilization on the yield of major crops of the common cropping systems in Egypt, <strong>and</strong> (2) promote <strong>and</strong> extend to farmers the most efficient fertilization <strong>and</strong> irrigation techniques. For this, field experiments were conducted at three locations with the following seven treatments: (1) no fertilizer, (2) NPK according to the farmer’s practice, (3) NP at the recommended rate, (4) NK as recommended by Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), (5) NPK as recommended by the MoA, (6) NPK based on soil testing, <strong>and</strong> (7) NPK Based on soil testing + micronutrients. For all crops <strong>and</strong> at all three locations, balanced fertilization helped maximize yield <strong>and</strong> yield components. At El-Behira, wheat grain yield was the highest (7.8 t/ha) for the NPK+micronutrients treatment, whereas control <strong>and</strong> the farmers’ practice resulted in the lowest yields (2.4 <strong>and</strong> 4.2 t/ha, respectively). A similar trend was observed in maize, where the highest yield (9.1 t/ha) was obtained with the NPK+micronutrients, while control <strong>and</strong> farmers’ practice gave 2.8 <strong>and</strong> 5.1 t/ha, respectively. Similarly, at El-Monofia, wheat grain yield was the highest (7.9 t/ha) for the NPK+micronutrients treatment, while the control <strong>and</strong> the farmers’ practice resulted in the lowest yields (3.1 <strong>and</strong> 4.3 t/ha, respectively). Once again the maize crop recorded the highest yield (12.6 t/ha) with NPK+micronutrients, while the control <strong>and</strong> farmers’ practice recorded 6.3 <strong>and</strong> 9.0 t/ha of grain yields, respectively. Similar results were obtained at Ismailia, where yet again the wheat grain yield was the highest (6.25 t/ha) with NPK+micronutrients application, while the control <strong>and</strong> the NP treatments resulted in the lowest yields (1.0 <strong>and</strong> 3.7 t/ha , respectively). For fodder sorghum crop, the highest yield (89.7 t/ha) was again obtained with the NPK+micronutrients, while the control <strong>and</strong> NP treatments had 4.9 <strong>and</strong> 45.5 t/ha yields, respectively. Egypt-01 Balanced Fertilization of Major Crops in Syria Project Leader: Omar Jouzdan, The Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones <strong>and</strong> Dry L<strong>and</strong>s (ACSAD), Damascus, Syria. E-mail: omarj62@hotmail.com Project Cooperator: Ali Zaidan In Syria, application of mineral fertilizers is highly skewed towards N, which has lead to the depletion of other nutrients like K, P, <strong>and</strong> micronutrients in many soils. The objectives of this project were to: (a) determine the effect of balanced fertilization on the yield of major crops of the common cropping systems in Syria, <strong>and</strong> (b) promote <strong>and</strong> extend to farmers the most efficient fertilization <strong>and</strong> irrigation techniques. For this, both on-farm <strong>and</strong> on-station experiments were conducted at four different locations in Syria with different permutations <strong>and</strong> combinations of macronutrients (NP, NK, PK, NPK, etc.) <strong>and</strong> fertilizer rates varying from 75 to 150%. This summary provides results from just one location in Southern Syria (Dera’s Azrou). The results obtained from the wheat experiment conducted at a farmer’s field in Southern Syria (Dera’a Azrou) indicated that the highest wheat grain yield (2.31 t/ha) was obtained when all three macronutrients were applied at 72, 38, <strong>and</strong> 35 kg/ha of N, P 2 O 2 <strong>and</strong> K 2 O, respectively. In contrast, the lowest grain yield (1.73 t/ha) was obtained when no fertilizers were added, while no significant differences were observed among IPNI Interpretive Summaries 103