Balanced Fertilization of Major Crops in Egypt

The objectives of this project were to: 1) determine the effect of balanced fertilization on the yield of major crops of the common cropping systems in Egypt; and 2) promote and extend to farmers the most efficient fertilization and irrigation techniques. For this, field experiments were conducted at three locations with the following seven treatments: 1) no fertilizer; 2) NPK according to the farmers' practice; 3) NP at the recommended rate; 4) NK as recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture; 4) NPK as recommended by Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture; 5) NPK based on soil testing; and 6) NPK based on soil testing + micronutrients.

For all crops and at the two locations, balanced fertilization helped maximize yield and yield components. At El-Behira site, wheat grain yield was the highest (6.5 t/ha) for the NPK+micronutrients treatment, whereas the control and the farmers' practice resulted in the lowest yields (2.2 and 4.2 t/ha, respectively). A similar trend was observed in the maize crop, where the highest yield (7.1 t/ha) was obtained with the NPK+micronutrients, while the control and farmers' practice gave 2.3 and 3.1 t/ha, respectively. Similarly, at El-Monofia site, wheat grain yield was the highest (6.4 t/ha) for the NPK+micronutrients treatment, while the control and the farmers' practice resulted in the lowest yields (4.4 and 4.8 t/ha, respectively). The lupine as a summer crop recorded the highest yield (1.9 t/ha) with NPK+micronutrients, while the control and farmers' practice gave 1.3 and 1.4 t/ha, respectively.