Effect of Foliar Feeding of Nutrients, Salicylic Acid and Sea Weed Extract on Yield and Yield Attributes of Wheat Varieties under Tarai Region

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in the E-2 block of Norman E. Borlaug Crop Research Centre (NEBCRC) of Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology (GBPUA&T), Pantnagar during rabi of 2021-2022. The experiment envisages study the growth and productivity and economic feasibility wheat under variable varieties and foliar nutrition management. The experiment was laid in Factorial Randomized Block Design with two varieties (DBW-17&WH-1105) and five foliar spray treatments viz., no spray (control), NPK mixture at 45 & 60 DAS (FN-1), Micro-nutrients mixture at 45 & 60 DAS (FN-2), salicylic acid at 45 & 60 DAS (FN-3) and seaweed extract at 45 & 60 DAS (FN-4). Variety WH-1105 recorded higher plant height, number of tillers/m2 and dry matter accumulation (g/m2) than DBW-17 at 60, 90 DAS. At harvest, variety WH-1105 indicated the effective tillers/m2, spike length, number of grains/spikes, number of spikelets/spike and grain weight per spike were higher by 2.7, 8.0, 4.6, 3.3 and 17.2%, respectively over variety DBW-17. Thousand grain weight and number of sterile spikelets/spikes was also exhibiting significant increase. Significantly higher grain yield, straw yield and biological yield were recorded under WH-1105 as compared to DBW-17 and the respective increase was 4.9, 4.3 and 5.0 percent. The net return and B:C ratio were improved by 5.6 & 5.7%, respectively at variety WH-1105 over variety DBW-17.