Improving wheat productivity by bio-nitrogen fertilization under newly planted sandy soils

The present investigation was carried out in sandy soil at the Experimental Farm of EI-Boustan, Faculty of Agriculture, Damanhour, Alexandria University, during 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 growing seasons. This investigation was designed to evaluate the performance and production of two wheat cultivars i.e.,Giza 164 and Sakha 69 as well as the effect of three bio-nitrogen fertilization treatments (untreated, Nitrobin and Microbin) and five rates of chemical nitrogen fertilizer doses (49, 98, 147, 196 and 245 Kg N/ha) on these cultivars of wheat. The following results were recorded: _ Giza 164 cultivar significantly surpassed Sakha 69 cultivar in all studied traits i.e., grain yield (ton/ha), straw yield (ton/ha), biological yield (ton/ha), harvest index (%), number of spikes/m. , spike length, number of kernels/spike, 1000- kernel weight and plant height, in both seasons._ As for bio-nitrogen fertilization, all studied traits, except harvest index, highly significantly increased by inoculation of wheat grains either by Nitrobin or Microbin compared with uninoculated ones, in both seasons. Microbin biofertilizer insignificantly increased all studied traits - except harvest index- compared with Nitrobin, in both seasons. Increasing doses of chemical nitrogen fertilization showed significant effect on all studied traits- except harvest index- in both seasons, up to 196 Kg N/ha whereas differences between of 196 and 245 Kg N/ha were insignificant. _There were highly significant interaction between bio-nitrogen fertilization treatments and doses of chemical nitrogen fertilizer for all studied traits, except harvest index. The present study recommended sowing inoculated grains of Giza 164 wheat cultivar by Microbin plus of 196 Kg N/ha of chemical nitrogen fertilizer to produce good production of grain yield and decreasing environmental pollution by decreasing chemical nitrogen fertilizers by 20 % under newly reclaimed sandy soil conditions.