Effects of Different Organic Amendments on Maize (Zea Mays L.) Growth in Salt Affected Soil

Salinity stress is the most notorious among all abiotic stresses. It hampers the growth and productivity of crops via ionic imbalance, disturbance in the metabolic process and specific ions toxicity. The necessity of time is to introduce better organic amendment rates for its mitigation in cereal crops, especially maize. Therefore, a pot experiment was performed in the wirehouse of the Saline Agriculture Research Centre (SARC), University of Agriculture, Faisalabad to evaluate the effect of farmyard manure and compost application rates in saline soil. A hybrid maize variety (Monsanto DK-6789) was sown and recommended doses of NPK were applied. Organic amendments (FYM and Compost) with their rates (recommended, 25% increased dose of recommended and 50% increased dose of recommended) were applied to assess the growth of hybrid maize with salinity levels (Control < 2dS m-1, moderate salinity_5dS m-1, High salinity_10dS m-1). Seven treatments each with three replicates were carried out by using Complete Randomized Design (CRD). The results of the study indicated that T4 (50% increased farmyard manure) and T7 (50% increased compost) were significantly varied in controlling the shoot and root length, shoot and root fresh weight and dry weight of maize over control at <2, 5 and 10 dS m-1 EC. A significant increase of 32, 28 and 39% in chlorophyll contents of maize validated the efficacious functioning of T4 over control for alleviation of <2, 5 and 10 dS m-1 salinity. Similarly, significant enhancement of 48, 39 and 84% in root fresh weight also declared that T7 was a better treatment under <2, 5 and 10 dSm-1 salinity. In conclusion, T4 and T7 can be used and recommended for better alleviation of salinity stress in maize. More experiments are suggested at the field level by using these 2 application rates of farmyard manure and compost for declaration of modified amendment for salinity stress mitigation.