Investigation of Growth Indices, Grain yield and Yield Components of Canary seed (Phalaris canariensis) in Response to the Different Levels of Irrigation, Organic and Chemical

Canary seed (Phalaris canariensis L.) from poaceae family is a drought tolerant plant. Canary seed originally is native to Mediterranean region, and can be grown commercially in several parts of the world.
Evaluation of different systems of plant feeding to achieve a high yield and desirable quality is one of the important requirements in agricultural planning . Therefore, gradually replacing chemical fertilizers with biological and organic fertilizers will result in providing nutrient requirements of plants, improvement of physical, chemical and biological conditions of soil and reduction of adverse environmental effects. Therefore, the aim of this research is to study the effect of deficit irrigation and managing the use of chemical and organic fertilizers individually or  combined on yield and yield components of canary seed. To investigate the effects of different levels of irrigation water and integrated management of chemical and organic fertilizers on growth indices, yield and yield components of Canary seed plant, an experiment was conducted as split plot based on a randomized complete block design with three replications at Agricultural Research Station, College of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran during growing season of 2013-2014.
Main plots considered different irrigation regimes  with three levels (60, 80 and 100 percent of water requirement) and sub-plots considered for fertilizer treatments in six levels (chemical fertilizer, vermicompost fertilizer, manure, chemical fertilizer + vermicompost fertilizer, chemical fertilizer + manure and control). The amounts of treatment of nitrogen chemical fertilizer (200 kg ha-1 of urea source and 150 kg ha-1 of triple super phosphate) were applied in related plots. The amounts of manure fertilizers (30 t ha-1) and vermicompost (6 t ha-1) were determined and applied based on recommended amount of nitrogen. Water requirement of Canary seed was estimated by the OPTIWAT software under general condition of Mashhad
Before final harvest of the grain, 10 bushes were randomly chosen from each plot and traits such as bush height, the number of tillers per bush, the number of prolific tillers in each bush, the number of spikes in each bush, the number of grains in each spike, the grain weight in each spike and bush, 1000 grain weight and harvest index were determined. Then, considering margin from a surface equivalent to 1.4 m2, plants were harvested from the height 3-5 cm and the produced biomass in each plot was recorded. Then, grains were separated from straw and the grain yield was determined in each plot.
Finally, recorded data were analyzed by SAS software ver. 9.1 and mean comparison based on Duncan multiple-range test was conducted by MSTAT-C software in the probability level of 5 percent.  This study results indicated that different levels of water irrigation had significant impact on all studied traits except harvest index. All studied traits except harvest index and 1000-grain weight had been significantly influenced by fertilizer treatments. Interaction of different irrigation regimes and fertilizer treatments had significant effect on the traits including plant height, the number of tillers per plant.  The maximum height of plant was observed in irrigation treatment of 80 percent of water requirement and the maximum number of tillers per plant was observed in irrigation treatment of 100 percent of water requirement. In addition, under the irrigation treatment of 100 percent water requirement and 100 percent water requirement, the maximum number of grains per plant and the maximum biological yield was observed.  The maximum grains per plant and biological yield was observed under animal manure and vermicompost treatments. Animal manure and vermicompost treatments had higher yield than control and chemical fertilizer treatments. In most of the studied traits, irrigation treatment of 100 percent water requirement was not significantly different from 80 percent water requirement irrigation. The authors acknowledge the financial support of the project (grant number 31441, 09 July 2014) Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran.