Mitigating the Detrimental Impacts of Nitrogen Deficit and Fenoxaprop-p-ethyl Herbicide on Wheat using Silicon

Abstract

Crop plants treated with silicon (Si) can overcome the injury impacts of several stress conditions. However, scarce information is available about the significance of Si for helping the plants to overcome the injuries of low nitrogen (N) supply and herbicide pressure. A 2-year field experiment was carried out for evaluating four combinations of fenoxaprop-p-ethyl and Si: fenoxaprop-p-ethyl + Si<inf>250ppm</inf> and fenoxaprop-p-ethyl + Si<inf>500ppm</inf> (each either in sequence or in a tank mixture), in addition to fenoxaprop-p-ethyl alone, hand weeding, and weed check under two N levels (N<inf>100%</inf> and N<inf>50%</inf>). Silicon can mitigate the reduction in wheat yield but has no effect on weeds when applied with fenoxaprop-p-ethyl. When adding N<inf>50%</inf>, sequential application of fenoxaprop-p-ethyl + Si<inf>250ppm</inf> along with hand weeding and other fenoxaprop-p-ethyl + Si treatments, except fenoxaprop-p-ethyl alone, were the most promising for improving grain yield.