Salinity stress mitigation of some canola cultivars grown under South Sinai conditions using magnetic water technology

Abstract

Salinity stresses either in irrigation water and/or soil is one of the most serious agricultural problems facing farmers in arid and semi-arid regions included Egypt.  Many areas in the Sinai region depend mainly on the underground water of various degrees of salinity that prevent cultivated crops from reach to the full yield. Under these conditions, a split-plot field experiment using three canola cultivars; Pactol, Serw-4 and Serw-6 under three irrigation water treatments: i) Brackish-water (BW), ii) Magnetic-BW1; brackish water after magnetization through passing a three inch static-magnetic unit,3.75 mT, produced by Delta Water Company, Egypt and iii) Magnetic-BW2; brackish water after magnetization through passing a three inch static magnetic unit, 0.75 mT, produced by Magnetic-Technologies Company, UAE, was carried out at Agricultural Experimental Station of Desert Research Centre, Ras Sidr region, South Sinai Governorate, Egypt during the 2017/18 winter season. The results showed that irrigation with M-BW₁ or M-BW₂ surpassed irrigation with BW in all tested growth parameters (plant height, branches and leaf number/plant, leaf area, dry matter of leaves, stem and total plant, and total chlorophyll); leaf anatomy (instance, midvein and lamina thickness, length and width of leaf vascular bundle and lower and upper epidermis thickness); stem anatomy (stem diameter and thickness of cortex, xylem and phloem in addition pith diameter) and chemical analysis for mineral content (N, P, K, Mg, Fe, Cu, Zn ) at 85 days after sowing (DAS). As an average of both magnetically brackish-water treatments over tested three canola varieties, the percent of improvement compared to irrigation with brackish-water ranged between 10.78-16.02% for growth parameters, 28.33-31.76% for dry matter of plant; 15.58 -80.81% for leaf ; 10.71-63.88% for stems and 2.42-54.48% for mineral content of leaves at 85 DAS. Reverse trends were observed in the best indicators for alleviation salinity stress (Na, and proline), where these decreased under both magnetic brackish water treatments by 66.08 and 43.75%, respectively (average of both magnetically  brackishwater treatments compared to BW water treatment). Generally, the three tested canola varieties showed a positive response under magnetic brackish water treatments. The positive results in above-mentioned parameters of vegetative growth reflected improvement in canola yield and its components. The percent of improvement ranged between 9.35 and 35.98 for yield components and reached1.29,19.66 and 21.30% in seed oil percentage, seeds and oil yield (kg fed^-1; fed=4200 m²), respectively compared to brackish water.