Assessment of maize leaf indicators under water reduction levels: Impact of polymer, charcoal, and antiperspirant treatments

Water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change and international conflicts, poses significant challenges to maize production. Research has shown that interventions like plant charcoal, superabsorbent polymers, and anti-transpiration agents can mitigate water stress effects, enhancing maize growth indicators. Therefore, the experiment was conducted in the fields of the Department of Field Crops, College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad, in the spring season of 2022. The aim of the experiment was to increase the growth indicators of maize leaves exposed to water reduction levels using polymer, charcoal, and antiperspirant. The experiment was designed as a randomized complete block design (RCBD) in a split-plot arrangement with three replicates. The main plots were occupied by water reduction levels (0, 25 and 50%), while the subplots were occupied by the additives: sodium acrylate, biochar, antiperspirant, charcoal + antiperspirant, acrylate + antiperspirant, acrylate + charcoal + antiperspirant, and control. The charcoal treatment was able to join the binary and ternary treatments to give a significant increase over the other treatments in the number of leaves. In the weight of leaves, the acrylate + antiperspirant treatment was behind them, and they remained significantly superior. There was no significant difference observed among treatments in leaf area. However, the antiperspirant treatment exhibited the lowest percentage of leaf water loss, significantly differing from all other treatments. Additionally, the antiperspirant treatment consistently demonstrated the highest relative water content across all treatments in which it was applied, a trend similar to charcoal treatments. As for the interaction between the two factors of the study, it appeared that there was no significant difference in the charcoal + antiperspirant treatment at the levels of 0 and 25%, but the decrease became significant at the level of 50%.