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. 2023 Jun 29;12(13):2486.
doi: 10.3390/plants12132486.

Growth and Performance of Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.) Genotypes under Various Irrigation Regimes with and without Biogenic Silica Amendment in Arid Southwest US

Alonso Garcia  1 , Kulbhushan Grover  1 , Dawn VanLeeuwen  2 , Blair Stringam  1 , Brian Schutte  3
Affiliations

Growth and Performance of Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.) Genotypes under Various Irrigation Regimes with and without Biogenic Silica Amendment in Arid Southwest US

Alonso Garcia et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Guar is a potential crop that can be grown as a forage or as a seed crop in arid to semi-arid regions due to its low water requirements and tolerance to heat. Optimizing irrigation water use is important for making alternative crops such as guar a sustainable option. Amendments such as biogenic silica, a sedimentary rock from a biogenic source such as fossils, may help plants tolerate water stress due to reduced irrigation. The objective of the current study was to evaluate seed yield and attribute components and agronomic and physiological parameters for four guar genotypes (Matador, Kinman, Lewis, and NMSU 15-G1) under five drip irrigation regimes (I1-normal irrigation, I2-no irrigation at 75% pod formation, I3-no irrigation at 50% and 75% pod formation, I4-terminate irrigation at flowering, and I5-terminate irrigation at flowering + biogenic silica amendment) at Las Cruces in southern New Mexico, USA, from 2016 to 2018. On average, the I1 irrigation regime produced the highest guar seed yield (2715 kg ha-1) followed by I5 (2469 kg ha-1) from 2016 to 2018. As compared to the I1 regime, the I2 and I3 regimes resulted in a 20.8% and 23.4% decline in guar seed yield, respectively, on average from 2016 to 2018. The results suggest that the addition of biogenic silica might help to improve guar seed yield under reduced irrigation conditions and can produce comparable yields with an average of 300 mm of irrigation during the growing season in the southern New Mexico region of the Southwest US.

Keywords: arid agriculture; biogenic silica; clusterbean; guar; guar seed yield; irrigation; water use efficiency.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Amount of total water received (Rain + irrigation) vs. guar seed yield from 2016–2018 in Las Cruces, NM. I1-normal irrigation, I2-no irrigation at 75% pod formation, I3-no irrigation at 50% and 75% pod formation, I4-terminate irrigation at flowering, and I5-terminate irrigation at flowering + biogenic silica. The 50% and 75% pod formation stages at 57 and 72 days after planting, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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