The water challenges facing the world force decision-makers to take measures that will reduce water requirements of the strategic plants without significantly affecting the yield. So, a field trail was executed during two successive seasons (2024 and 2025) to assess the influence of different irrigation treatments I1:100% of field capacity FC, I2: 75% of FC and I3: 50% of FC as main factor, three regimes of fertilization F1:100% of NPK recommended dose RD as mineral fertilizers, F2:75% of NPK-RD as mineral fertilizers+25% of NPK-RD as banana residues compost, F3:75% of NPK-RD as mineral fertilizers+25% of NPK-RD as medicinal and aromatic plant compost as sub main factor and two treatments of natural polymer applied or not as sub-sub plots on the maize performance. Growth criteria, chemical constitutes, oxidative activity, yield and its components were evaluated. The results indicated that the traditional irrigation water (I1) outperformed the deficit treatments (I2&I3). Regarding fertilization treatments, the third regime (F3 treatment) came in the first order followed by F2 then F1 treatments. On the other hand, the plant performance in presence of the polymer was better than in absence of the polymer. Additionally, there were no significant effect between the combined treatment of I2 (water deficit stress) X F2 or F3 with polymer and the combined treatment of I1 (traditional irrigation) X F1 without polymer. Hence, it can be recommended to include polymer with organic fertilizer derived from medicinal and aromatic plant compost and banana residues in agricultural programs in areas suffering from water deficit.
Qotb et al. (Tue,) studied this question.