Department of Soil and Water (DSW)

Rice as strategic agricultural crop requires a sufficient, but not excessive, the supply of essential mineral elements for optimal productivity at right time, right amount and right place of application. An insufficient supply of mineral elements required in large quantities and/or mineral elements with low phyto-availability in soils often limits crop production. In many agricultural soils, there is rarely sufficient phyto-available N, P or K to supply enough of these elements for the rapid growth of crop plants during their early growth. The DSW was founded with a mandate to find the right amount, right time and right place of essential mineral supplying (fertilizers) in both intensive and extensive agricultural systems. In addition, in areas where mineral deficiencies occur in animals and/or humans, fertilizers are applied not only to increase crop production but also to increase concentrations of essential mineral elements in edible portions (bio-fortification).

Research activities

• Investigation of the best time, amount and place of essential macro and micronutrients application for local, hybrid and improved new rice varieties
• Explore the best nutrient extractor in paddy soils condition
• Site-Specific Nutrient Management (SSNM) research for optimizing the supply of soil nutrients over space and time to match crop requirements
• Soil and water relationships
• Organic matter impact on paddy soils
• Soil, water, and plant pollution
• Land suitability evaluation
• Rice grain bio-fortification
• Soil fertility mapping
• Application and efficiency of Bio-fertilizers
• Nutrients requirements at stress conditions

Achievements

• Phosphorus kinetics in paddy soils of Guilan
• Explore the best nutrient extractor in paddy soils condition for P, K
• Determination of N, P, K and Zn requirement for local, hybrid and improved rice varieties
• Combination effect of irrigation regimes and N fertilizer on rice yield and yield component (Hashemi variety)
• Application of SSNM strategy for essential macronutrients on Guilan paddy fields
• Heavy metal contamination on Zar-Joob River, paddy fields irrigated by Zar-Joob River, and rice grain (Hashemi variety)

Some of DAPB Published papers

• Mahmoud Soltani, Shahram, et al. “Qualitative land suitability evaluation for the growth of rice and off-seasons crops as rice based cropping system on paddy fields of Central Guilan, Iran.” Indian Journal of Science and Technology 6.10 (2013): 5395-5403.
• Mahmoud Soltani, Shahram, et al. “Zinc fractionation of tropical paddy soils and their relationships with selected soil properties.” Chemical Speciation & Bioavailability 27.2 (2015): 53-61.
• Roshanravan, Bita, Shahram Mahmoud Soltani, Suraya Abdul Rashid, Fariba Mahdavi, and Mohd Khanif Yusop. “Enhancement of nitrogen release properties of urea–kaolinite fertilizer with chitosan binder.” Chemical Speciation & Bioavailability 27, no. 1 (2015): 44-51. Vahed, H. S.,
• Meskini-Vishkaee, Fatemeh, and Naser Davatgar. “Evaluation of Different Predictor Models for Detailed Soil Particle-Size Distribution.” Pedosphere 28, no. 1 (2018): 157-164.
• Kamyab-Talesh, Forough, Taymour Razavipour, Mojtaba Rezaei, and Mohammadreza Khaledian. “The effect of urea fertilizer quantity and splitting on nitrate losses during rice growth season.” Advances in Environmental Biology (2014): 357-363.