EFFECT OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS ON THE GROWTH AND YIELD OF BROCCOLI

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Horticulture Farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka during the period from October 2005 to February 2006. The experiment was conducted in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications to study the effect of different levels of nitrogen and phosphorus on the growth and yield of broccoli. The growth and yield of broccoli were significantly influenced by the application of different levels of nitrogen. Phosphorus had a little effect on the vegetative growth of broccoli. But some yield contributing characters,such as, length of leaf, number of secondary curd, weight of secondary curd, yield per plot and yield per hectare were significant influenced by the application of different levels of phosphorus. The maximum average yield of 12.36 and 8.75 were obtained when the highest doses of nitrogen (180 kg /ha) and phosphorus ( 130 kg /ha) were applied independently. Different growth and yield parameters of broccoli were significantly influenced by the combined effect of nitrogen and phosphorus. The interaction effect of nitrogen and phosphorus on length of leaves, plant canopy, diameter of stem, weight of curd, weight of secondary curd nd yield per hectare were found to be statistically significant. The highest average yield (18.53 t/ha) was recorded in the plot receiving 180 kg N/ha and 130 kg P/ha, and the lowest yield (7.86 t/ha) was found from control teatmcnt.