EFFECT OF UREA GRADIENT CONCENTRATIONS OF BIURET ON MAIZE GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY
E. M. EL-HADIDI *
Department of Soils, Fac. Agric., Mansoura University, Egypt
A. M. EL-GHAMRY
Department of Soils, Fac. Agric., Mansoura University, Egypt
E. M. EL-NAGGAR
Fertilizer Development Center of Delta Company, Talkha, Egypt
M. A. SHAMS
Fertilizer Development Center of Delta Company, Talkha, Egypt
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Nowadays, the development of urea manufacturing methods allows the production of urea fertilizer that contains less concentration of biuret. However, the question that remains about phytotoxic levels of biuret is still existing. So, lysimeter experiment was implemented aiming at evaluating the influence of urea gradient concentrations of biuret i.e.0.0, 0.6, 1.4, 2.4, 5.6 and 8% on growth, yield and chemical composition of maize plants as well as some soil properties after harvesting.
The results showed that maximum content of biuret in urea was 0.6% for obtaining growth plant, yield and yield components and also chemical composition without depression in their values, while after this concentration all parameters studied were decreased sharply because of biuret toxicity for grown plant and soil microorganisms.
Keywords: Urea, biuret toxicity and maize plants