Ercan Ceyhan

Boron Content of Cultivated Soils in Central-Southern Anatolia and its Relationship with Soil Properties and Irrigation Water Quality

Boron toxicity may occur in semi-arid regions due to high levels of B in soils, in the ground water, in fertilisers or in irrigation water (U.S. Salinity Lab. Staff, 1954; Nable et al., 1997).

Response of Chickpea Cultivars to Application of Boron in Boron‐Deficient Calcareous Soils

Abstract This study was conducted to investigate the effects of four boron (B) doses (control, 0 kg B ha−1; B1, 1 kg B ha−1; B2, 3 kg B ha−1; and B3, 6 kg B ha−1) in soils deficient in available B (0.19 mg B kg−1) and lime (CaCO3) content (20.7%) on yield and some yield components of five chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes, namely Akçin‐91, Population, Gökçe, İzmir‐92, and Menemen‐92 in central Anatolian Turkey in the 2002 and 2003 growing seasons. Plant height, pods per plant, grain yield, protein content, protein yield, thousand seed weight, and leaf B concentration were measured. Grain yields in all genotypes (except for Gökçe) were significantly increased by 1 kg ha−1 B application. Application of 1 kg ha−1 B increased the yield by an average of 5%. Genotypes studied showed significant variations with respect to their responses to additional B. Akçin‐91 gave the highest grain yield (1704.8 kg ha−1) at 3 kg B ha−1, whereas Population, İzmir‐92, and Menemen‐92 yielded best (1468.2 kg ha−1, 1483.0 kg ha−1, and 1484.7 kg ha−1, respectively) at 1 kg B ha−1. Interestingly, Gökçe reached to the highest level of grain yield (1827.1 kg ha−1) at the control. Gökçe was a B deficiency B tolerance genotype. The other genotypes appeared to have high sensitivity to B deficiency. This study showed that B deficiency could result in significant yield losses in chickpea under the experimental conditions tested. Thus, B contents of soils for the cultivation of chickpea should be analyzed in advance to avoid yield losses.

The Importance of Bioconservation and Biodiversity in Turkey

Biodiversity represents the basis of all life on our planet or in a specific area. It is clear that natural resources do not last forever. Turkey is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the temperate zone. More than one third of species found in Turkey are endemic, native to the region. So Turkey is like a kind of small continent in terms of biodiversity. It is also rich as biodiversity with 120 mammals, 469 bird species, 130 reptiles, 400 fishes and 4000 endemic of 11000 plants species. However, this gene pool is threatened by genetic erosion as in some other parts of the world. The primary objective of germplasm conservation depends on genetic diversity. The importance of biodiversity is highlighted.

The Impacts of Environment on Plant Products

Plan t species depend on specific environment conditions to optimum growing. There are various agricultural areas that comprised from plant species which originated in climatically quite different regions. Plants absorb many elements from soil which have biological function and some of them are known as toxic also at low amounts. In case of environmental conditions change, plants will response as changing some of their metabolic activities. So that some of the quality parameters will change. Some of the plants can adopt as well as reasonable values, but some of them will be affected negatively. Although human are not able to or has limits to change ecological situations, they also able to recognize some characteristics of plants and again can develop new plant species and regulate or eliminate some of the harmful effects of environment on plant quality parameters for adaptation to different climatic conditions. If we know the effects of ecological conditions on plants, the definition and improvement of plant quality parameters will be easy. Therefore plants are the basic place of food chain; there are some sorrows about their quality and credibility.

Micronutrient contents in leaves of sunflower cultivars grown with different boron doses.

SUMMARY Although boron is essential for crop growth, the amount required differs among plant species. Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) requires greater quantities of boron to satisfy its metabolic needs than other cultivated species. The present work was undertaken to evaluate what effects five boron doses of 0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 kg B ha-1 (applied as a spray of boric acid, H3BO3) would have on micronutrient contents in leaves of four sunflower cultivars grown in B-deficient calcareous soils (0.19 B mg kg-1) during the 2001 growing season. Boron (B), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) concentrations were measured in sunflower leaves at the flowering stage. According to the results, the B concentration in the leaves was highly correlated with boron doses, that is, the leaf B content increased in accordance with increasing B doses applied to the soil. Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn concentrations in the leaves were not changed by the different B levels. However, leaf Mn, B and Cu concentrations varied with the cultivars. Among the cultivars, TR-4098 had the highest Mn (90.74 mg kg-1) and Cu contents (45.95 mg kg-1), while AS-615 had the highest B (83.52 mg kg-1) and Fe (202.55 mg kg-1) concentrations.