Response of Lentil to Crude Humates and Rhizobacteria Inoculation under Calcareous Soils Conditions

Abstract

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) is one of the winter season pulse crops which has a considerable nutritive value for human beings present in their seeds which contains about 21–31% protein, 43.4–69.9% total carbohydrate, 0.7–4.3% fat, 5.0–26% fiber and 2.2–4.2% ash (Joshi et al., 2017). Furthermore, like any leguminous crop, lentil cultivation can share in the sustainable development of agroecosystems. Its cultivation has a vital role in nitrogen cycling because it can be fix biologically about 85% of its required nitrogen from the surrounding atmosphere 14.39% of nitrogen is drawn from soil source (Gan et al., 2016; Kabir et al., 2019). In Egypt, statistics showed that lentils’ production in 2017 was only 480 tonnes which was produced from 235 ha (≈ 580.7fed) harvested area (FAOSTAT, 2019).