52 Asian J Agric & Biol. 2020;8(1):52-60 Received: October 21, 2019 Accepted: December 09, 2019 Published: February 17, 2020 *Corresponding author email: mazhar1621@gmail.com Asian J Agric & Biol. 2020;8(1):52-60. DOI: 10.35495/ajab.2019.10.433 Impact of farm manure application on maize growth and tissue Pb concentration grown on different textured saline-sodic Pb-toxic soils Muhammad Mazhar Iqbal 1* , Tayyaba Naz 2 , Hafeez-u-Rehman 3 , Sehar Nawaz 4 , Muhammad Abdul Qayyum 5 , Mazhar Iqbal Zafar 6 , Omer Farooq 7 , Atiqure-urRehman 7 , Muhammad Imtiaz 8 , Ghulam Murtaza 2 , Abid Mahmood 9 , Shahzada Munawar Mehdi 10 , Shahid Javed 11 , Muhammad Aleem Sarwar 12 , Muhammad Ishaq Javed 13 1 Soil and Water Testing Laboratory, Chiniot. Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, Pakistan 2 Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan 3 Soil and Water Testing Laboratory, Sialkot. Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, Pakistan 4 Centre of Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan 5 Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences. Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan 6 Department of Environmental Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 7 Department of Agronomy, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan 8 Environmental Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Pakistan 9 Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad, Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, Pakistan 10 Rapid Soil Fertility Survey and Soil Testing Institute, Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan 11 Provincial Reference Fertilizer Testing Laboratory, Raiwind, Lahore, Pakistan 12 Soil and Water Testing Laboratory for Research, AARI, Faisalabad, Pakistan 13 Agricultural Economics Section, AARI, Faisalabad, Pakistan Abstract The impact of applied farm manure (FM) on growth of maize and tissue Pb concentration in maize grown on saline-sodic sandy loam and sandy clayey loam textured Pb-toxic soils was evaluated in present pot study. The soils were spiked with Pb at 200 kg ha -1 soil and equilibrated for 60 days at about field capacity. Treatments were comprised of three levels of FM (0, 20 or 40 g kg -1 soil) arranged in completely randomized design each replicated thrice. The highest dry matter of maize shoots from sandy loam soil was recorded with the applied 40 g kg -1 FM. From sandy loam soil, maximum dry matter of shoots was noted with FM at 20 and 40 g kg -1 . Applied FM at 20 and 40 g kg -1 produced statically similar dry matter of maize roots in sandy clayey loam soil. While in sandy loam soil, 20 g kg -1 FM application resulted in significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher dry matter of maize roots than control treatment and 40 g kg -1 FM application. The applied FM at 20 and 40 g kg -1 consequence in statically similar shoot and root Pb concentration grown on both textured Pb-toxic soils but lower compared to that of the control soils. For post-experiment soils, minimum plant available Pb in sandy loam soil with FM at 40 g kg -1 was recorded while in sandy clayey loam, minimum plant available Pb was observed with the addition of FM at 20 and 40 g kg -1 . Keywords: Farm manure, Organic matter, Pb concentration, Salinity, Sodicity, Pb venomous soil How to cite this: Iqbal MM, Naz T, Rehman HU, Nawaz S, Qayyum MA, Zafar MI, Farooq O, Rehman AU, Imtiaz M, Murtaza G, Mahmood A, Mehdi SM, Javed S, Sarwar MA and Javed MI, 2020. Impact of farm manure application on maize growth and tissue Pb concentration grown on different textured saline-sodic Pb-toxic soils. Asian J. Agric. Biol. 8(1): 52-60. DOI: 10.35495/ajab.2019.10.433 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Original Article AJAB