Enhancing Wheat Productivity under Salinity Conditions via Composts Made From Agricultural By-Products and Sorbitol Sugar

Salinity is a significant environmental stressor that has adverse effects on wheat growth and productivity. Employing a combination of approaches is generally necessary to improve wheat productivity under salinity conditions. To investigate the possibility of alleviating soil salinity stress on wheat plants, a field trial was conducted at Tag El-Ezz Experimental Farm, Dakahlia governorate, Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Egypt, which located at 30°56' 12.88" E longitude and 31°31' 47.64" N latitude. The trial involved the addition of plant residues compost (soybean, faba bean, and snap bean at a rate of 8.5 Mg ha-1 for each) to the soil as the main plots, while the foliar application of sorbitol at different rates (0, 5, 10 and 15 ml L-1) was allocated to the subplots. A split plot design with three replicates was used during the two successive winter seasons of 2021 and 2022 The use of various compost sources resulted in a noteworthy enhancement of multiple growth parameters, including plant height, fresh and dry weights, as well as productivity measures such as grain and straw yields... etc. However, these compost sources were also observed to decrease the levels of enzymatic antioxidants such as peroxidase, catalase and super oxidase compared to control treatment (without soil amendment). Soybean was found to be the most effective compost source, followed by faba bean and then snap bean. For example, the maximum value of plant height (102.32 and 105.93 cm for 1st and 2nd seasons, respectively) was achieved with soybean residues compost that, simultaneously, caused the minimum value of catalase enzyme (43.00 and 44.38 g-1 protein-¹ for 1st and 2nd seasons, respectively).While, the values under control treatment were 83.13 and 85.93 cm for plant height and 46.38 and 47.81 g-1 protein-¹ for catalase enzyme in 1st and 2nd seasons, respectively). In terms of foliar application, all rates of sorbitol were found to enhance plant growth performance and productivity, in comparison to the control treatment (without sorbitol). The growth and productivity parameters improved with increasing rates of added sorbitol. However, it was observed that as the added rate of sorbitol increased, the levels of the studied enzymatic antioxidants decreased gradually. In conclusion, it can be inferred that the most effective treatment for enhancing growth performance and productivity parameters, while also reducing the need for the plant to produce antioxidants under salinity conditions, was a combination of soybean compost and sorbitol at a rate of 15 ml L-1. This combined treatment yielded the highest values for the studied growth performance and productivity parameters. Generally, additional research is needed to investigate the long-term impact of these treatments and their efficacy in various environmental conditions.