Americas and Oceania Group - International Plant Nutrition Institute

Eastern Europe/Central Asia
and Middle East Group
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, and 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, and 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, and (2) promote and extend to farmers the most efficient fertilization and 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, and (7) NPK Based on soil testing + micronutrients.
For all crops and at all three locations, balanced fertilization helped maximize yield and yield components.
At El-Behira, wheat grain yield was the highest (7.8 t/ha) for the NPK+micronutrients treatment, whereas
control and the farmers’ practice resulted in the lowest yields (2.4 and 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 and farmers’ practice gave 2.8 and 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 and the farmers’ practice
resulted in the lowest yields (3.1 and 4.3 t/ha, respectively). Once again the maize crop recorded the highest
yield (12.6 t/ha) with NPK+micronutrients, while the control and farmers’ practice recorded 6.3 and 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 and the NP treatments
resulted in the lowest yields (1.0 and 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 and NP treatments had 4.9 and 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 and Dry Lands (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, and 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, and (b) promote and extend to farmers the most efficient fertilization and irrigation techniques. For this,
both on-farm and on-station experiments were conducted at four different locations in Syria with different
permutations and combinations of macronutrients (NP, NK, PK, NPK, etc.) and 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, and 35 kg/ha of N, P 2 O 2 and 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