INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZER AND SPACING ON THE YIELD PERFORMANCE OF BABY CORN

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Agronomy field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka during March to June 2017 to study the influence of fertilizer and spacing on the yield performance of baby corn. Four levels of fertilizer doses viz. F 1 = Recommended doses of fertilizer (RDF), F = 20% less than RDF, F 3 = 40% less than RDF and F = 20% higher than RDF and three levels of plant spacing viz. S 1 4 = 60 cm × 25 cm, S = 50 cm × 25 cm and S 3 2 = 40 cm × 25 cm were the treatments for the experiment. The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design with three replications having fertilizer doses in the main plot and plant spacing in the sub-plot. The nutrients; N, P, K, S and Zn were applied from the sources of urea, TSP, MoP, gypsum and ZnSO 4 respectively at the rate of 300, 150, 100, 150 and 10 kg ha , respectively which was considered as recommended doses of fertilizer (RDF). Hybrid baby corn was used as a test crop for the study. Results revealed that fertilizer treatment F (20% higher than RDF) showed the highest fresh cob yield ha -1 4 (9.26 t) whereas, the lowest (6.52 tha -1 ) was from F (40% less than RDF). Again, plant spacing with S 3 3 (40 cm × 25 cm) produce the highest fresh cob yield ha -1 (9.01 t) while the S (60 cm × 25 cm) produce the lowest (7.14 t). The interaction, F 4 S 3 1 showed significantly the highest fresh cob yield (10.10 t ha -1 ) which was attributed to the maximum number of cobs ha (270.00 thousand) and it also produced the maximum stover yield ha (11.12 t), biological yield ha -1 (21.22 t) and harvest index (47.60%). On the contrary, the minimum fresh cob yield was produced by the interaction, F 3 S ). For more precise results such trials need to be made in other agro climatic regions of Bangladesh. The highest gross return (Tk. 303000), net return (Tk. 137759) and BCR (1.83) were also obtained from the treatment combination of F 4 S 3 . But the lowest were obtained from the treatment combination of F (40% less than RDF with 40 cm × 25 cm plant spacing).