Low irrigation water minimizes the nitrate nitrogen losses without compromising the soil fertility, enzymatic activities and maize growth

Table 1 Effect of different water and N treatments on kernel yield, root and shoot dry matterr components of maize

N- fertilizer	Shoot dry matter (g)		Root dry matter (g)		Grain yield (g plant⁻¹)		Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE)
N- fertilizer	HW	LW	HW	LW	HW	LW	HW	LW
Control	25.0 + 2.4 d	26.2 + 1.9 d	3.5 + 0.1 c	5.2 + 0.1 c	32.2 ± 0.6 d	27.9 ± 1.7 d	0.0	0.0
N200	34.3 + 1.5 c	38.4 + 2.2 c	5.6 + 0.2 b	6.7 + 0.2 b	4744.21 ± 1.32.2 abc	37.6 ± 1.8 c	17. 32 ± 0.5 a	14.75 ± 0.7 a
N250	36.7 + 4.1 bc	45.4 + 2.0 b	6.0 + 0.2 b	7.5 + 0.4 b	38.5 ± 0.2 bc	57.2 ± 1.0 b	9.65 ± 0.1 b	14.38 ± 0.3 a
N300	41.0 + 1.0 ab	54.9 + 1.8 a	6.8 + 0.4 a	9.2 + 0.5 a	39.4 ± 2.2 abbc	70.0 ± 1.2 a	6.88 ± 0.4 c	12.18 ± 0.2 b
N350	43.4 + 1.8 a	47.0 + 2.2 b	7.1 + 0.3 a	8.7 + 0.3 a	44.247.1 ± 2.21.3 a	60.1 ± 0.9 b	6.03 ± 0.3 c	7.7 ± 0.1 c

Note Means followed by different lowercase letters within each column indicate significant differences (p < 0.05) using LSD test. The nitrogen treatments control, N200, N250, N300, and N350 represent the application of nitrogen at the rate of 0, 200, 250, 300 and 350 kg ha^− 1. HW and LW represent the irrigation water at a rate of 80 and 60% of field capacity

ISSN: 1471-2229