Soils in dry environments, including Egypt, suffer from irrigation water shortage. To enhance crops performance under these adverse conditions, antioxidants that proved to support plants are applied. The vitamin É‘-tocopherol (TOC) is an antioxidant compound that plays a crucial role in improvement of drought tolerance in plant species. Therefore, two field experiments were conducted in 2015 and 2016 seasons to assess the potential effect of foliar application with 0.5 and 1.0 mM TOC on growth, yield and its quality, concentrations of leaf photosynthetic pigments, osmoprotectants and nutrients, and water use efficiency in soybean plants grown under three irrigation levels measured as I₁₀₀ = 100%, I₈₀ = 80% and I₆₀ = 60% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc). Results showed that under deficit irrigation (DI), growth, photosynthetic efficiency, concentrations of osmoprotectants and nutrients, yield and its quality, and tissue water status (relative water content and membrane stability index) were improved, while electrolyte leakage was reduced by TOC application. These results were positively reflected in plant performance and water use efficiency under water stress conditions. Therefore, TOC could be a promising material to use to mitigate the adverse effects of DI, allowing water savings of 20% – 40% without any detrimental effect on soybean performance.

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