Muhammad Mazhar Iqbal^1*, Tayyaba Naz², Hafeez-u-Rehman³, Sehar Nawaz⁴, Muhammad Abdul Qayyum⁵, Mazhar Iqbal Zafar⁶, Omer Farooq⁷, Atiqure-urRehman⁷, Muhammad Imtiaz⁸, Ghulam Murtaza², Abid Mahmood⁹, Shahzada Munawar Mehdi¹⁰, Shahid Javed¹¹, Muhammad Aleem Sarwar¹², Muhammad Ishaq Javed¹³

¹Soil and Water Testing Laboratory, Chiniot. Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, Pakistan

²Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

³Soil and Water Testing Laboratory, Sialkot. Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, Pakistan

⁴Centre of Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

⁵Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences. Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan

⁶Department of Environmental Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

⁷Department of Agronomy, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan

⁸Environmental Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Pakistan

⁹Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad, Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, Pakistan

¹⁰Rapid Soil Fertility Survey and Soil Testing Institute, Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

¹¹Provincial Reference Fertilizer Testing Laboratory, Raiwind, Lahore, Pakistan

¹²Soil and Water Testing Laboratory for Research, AARI, Faisalabad, Pakistan

¹³Agricultural Economics Section, AARI, Faisalabad, Pakistan

Abstract

The impact of applied farm manure (FM) on growth of maize and tissue Pb concentration in maize grown on saline-sodic sandy loam and sandy clayey loam textured Pb-toxic soils was evaluated in present pot study. The soils were spiked with Pb at 200 kg ha^-1 soil and equilibrated for 60 days at about field capacity. Treatments were comprised of three levels of FM (0, 20 or 40 g kg^-1 soil) arranged in completely randomized design each replicated thrice. The highest dry matter of maize shoots from sandy loam soil was recorded with the applied 40 g kg^-1 FM. From sandy loam soil, maximum dry matter of shoots was noted with FM at 20 and 40 g kg^-1. Applied FM at 20 and 40 g kg^-1 produced statically similar dry matter of maize roots in sandy clayey loam soil. While in sandy loam soil, 20 g kg^-1 FM application resulted in significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher dry matter of maize roots than control treatment and 40 g kg^-1 FM application. The applied FM at 20 and 40 g kg^-1 consequence in statically similar shoot and root Pb concentration grown on both textured Pb-toxic soils but lower compared to that of the control soils. For post-experiment soils, minimum plant available Pb in sandy loam soil with FM at 40 g kg^-1 was recorded while in sandy clayey loam, minimum plant available Pb was observed with the addition of FM at 20 and 40 g kg^-1.

Keywords: Farm manure, Organic matter, Pb concentration, Salinity, Sodicity, Pb venomous soil