Abstract

An experiment was conducted during 2016–17 and 2017–18 seasons in Al-Bida'a/Mashrua/Babylon Governorate within 32º31′ north latitude and 44°21′ east longitude to study the effect of silicon (0.5 and 1.0 mM in addition to control treatment which was called C1, C2 and C3, respectively) and four treatments of antioxidants [control (B1), ascorbic acid (B2) at 50 mg/l, salicylic acid (B3) at 0.5 mM and ascorbic+salicylic (B4)] on growth of two oat varieties [Shafaa (A1) and oat 11(A2)]. The spraying was done twice at tillering and elongation stages. Randomized complete block design (RCBD) in arrangement of split-split plot design with three replications was used. Seeds were planted in lines 20 cm apart with a seed rate of 100 kg/ha. The results showed that Oat 11 variety was superior in plant height for both the seasons (109.0 and 106.6 cm), while Shafaa variety was superior in flag leaf area, tillers per m2 and relative growth rate (28.23 and 33.36 cm2, 536.8 and 531.7 tillers, 29.78 and 32.02 g/m2/day). Spraying salicylic acid was superior in flag leaf area (28.17 and 33.18 cm2), tillers number per m2 (506.4 and 508.9) and relative growth rate (28.14 and 31.10 g/m2/day). Silicon spraying treatment at 1 mM was superior in flag leaf area (27.00 and 30.78 cm2), tillers number per m2 (502.7 and 499.7) and relative growth rate (27.06 and 30.73 g/m2/day). The interactions between the factors caused a significant effect on all studied traits.