GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY OF POTATO (Solanum tuberosum L.) AS INFLUENCED BY NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS LEVELS

Abstract

Potato is one of the most important tuber crops produced in Bangladesh but it’s quality is not good enough for processing and export purpose. It is the world's third-largest food crop, following wheat, and rice. An experiment was carried out at Agronomy Research Field and Laboratory of Department of Agronomy, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Dhaka1207 during the winter season of 2016-2017

to know the “Growth, Yield and Quality of Potato cv. “Courage” as Influenced by Nitrogen and Phosphorus Levels. Treatments consisted of four levels of N (0, 150, 160 and 170 kg N ha -1 ) and four levels of P (0, 45, 50 and 55 kg P ha ) laid out in split plot design with three replications. Data were collected on growth, yield and quality parameters. Results revealed that application of N and P fertilizer significantly (P < 0.05) influenced on plant height, stem number, total tuber number, tuber weight, marketable tuber numbers, total tuber yield, marketable tuber yield, tuber dry matter percentage, total soluble solid and starch. Increasing N application from 0 to170 kg ha -1 significantly increased stem number hill -1 (from 3.87 to 5.29). The highest plant height (74.13 cm) was measured at the combination of 170 kg N ha -1 and 55 kg P ha -1 . The maximum total tuber number was recorded for the highest level of nitrogen and phosphorus (14.9 hill -1 ). The highest marketable tuber number (11.54) hill -1 1 was obtained for the combined application of 170 kg N ha . The highest total tuber yield was recorded for combined application of 170 kg N and 55kg P ha -1 (30.27 t ha -1 ). Combined application of 170 kg N and 55 kg P ha -1 gave the highest marketable tuber yield (24.13 t ha -1 ). The highest average tuber weight (59.89 g) was observed for combined application of 170 kg N ha -1 and 50 kg P ha -1 . The highest dry matter (23.27%) percentage of potato tuber was recorded from plots that received the combination of N 160 kg ha -1 and P 50 kg ha -1 .The highest specific gravity (1.091) was recorded from combined application of 170 kg N ha -1 and 55 kg P ha -1 .The highest amount of starch (17.41%) was obtained from combined application of 160 kg N ha -1 and 50 kg P ha -1 . In conclusion the results of this study showed that different nitrogen and phosphorus rates and their interactions have sound and promising impact on growth and yield of potato. Therefore, on the basis of the results of the present study, farmers can be more benefited from using 170 kg ha of nitrogen in combination with 55 kg P ha

-1 . -1 -1 and 55 kg P ha -1