Effect of humate compound fertilizer on physiological characteristics and yield of wheat under irrigated and rain-fed conditions

The effects of humate compound fertilizer on physiological characteristics and yield of wheat were studied in an experiment under irrigated and rain-fed conditions. The results show that humate compound fertilizer significantly increases root fresh weight and vigor of wheat both in the 0~20 cm and 20~40 cm soil layers, promoting root growth in these layers. Humate compound fertilizer increases wheat flag leaf f PSⅡ and ETR at late filling stage, especially under rain-fed condition. Wheat flag leaf SOD activity increases while MDA content decreases under the application of humate compound fertilizer, resulting in increased active oxygen scavenging ability of wheat. Compared with inorganic fertilizer treatment, spike number and kernel number as well as wheat yield are increased by humate compound fertilizer application. Yield increases by 10.26% under rain-fed condition, which is higher than the 7.77% increase under irrigated condition. This indicates that the application of humate compound fertilizer under rain-fed condition leads to improvements in the physiological characteristics and yield of wheat.