Effect of Water Stress and Selenium Spraying on Vegetative and Yield Indicators of Garlic Allium sativum L.

Abstract

Abstract A field trial was carried out at the research station of the Faculty of Agriculture - University of Kufa, Iraq, during the growing season in September 2022 to evaluate the effect of water stress and spraying with selenium on the growth and yield of garlic. Three irrigation levels (100%, 80%, and 60%) of the water required for garlic and three concentrations of selenium (0, 10, and 20) mg.L-1. A strip-plot system was set up within a randomized complete block design with three replicates, where irrigation levels were placed in the main plots and selenium concentrations were designated in the subplots. Plant height, number of leaves, total chlorophyll content, shoot dry weight, number of cloves, bulb weight, and bulb yield were recorded as the agro-physiological traits. Furthermore, analysis of variance exhibited significant differences between both factors and their interactions for all traits measured. The results showed significant differences in all the aforementioned traits when irrigation levels were reduced from 100% to 60% of the water requirement. Spraying selenium at 20 mg.L-1 achieved the highest values in most of the above-mentioned characteristics in comparison with the absolute control, which gave the lowest values. The interaction treatment (100% watering + 20 mg.L-1 selenium) provided the highest mean for plant height, number of leaves, number of cloves, bulb weight, and yield compared with the other treatments.