ROLE OF FOLIAR APPLICATION OF SALICYLIC ACID (SA) ON THE YIELD PERFORMANCE OF BRRI dhan29

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at the research field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh during the Boro season (November, 2016 to May, 2017) to investigate the role of different levels of salicylic acid (SA) as foliar spray on growth and yield performance of BRRI dhan29. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with six replications. The experiment was comprised of six treatments having five levels of SA. The treatments were T = 0 mM SA, T 2 = 0.25 mM SA, T 3 = 0.5 mM SA, T 4 ii = 0.75 mM SA, T 5 1 = 1.0 mM SA and T = 2.0 mM SA. The results revealed that lower doses of SA (upto 0.75 mM) has a positive effect on biomass production including plant height, effective tiller per hill, total tiller per hill, filled grain per panicle, grain yield and straw yield of BRRI dhan29 but not in higher doses upto 2.0 mM. The highest dry matter production at both maximum tillering stage and panicle initiation stage was found in the treatment T having foliar spray of 0.5 mM SA. The highest number of effective tillers per hill (14.66) was found in the treatment T 3 due to the application of 0.75 mM salicylic acid. The highest number of filled grain was found in treatment T 4 . The maximum grain yield (8.13 t/ha) was found in the treatment T 4 4 . On the other hand, minimum grain yield (7.02 t/ha) was found in the treatment T 1 (control) According to grain yield treatments can be arranged as T 4 >T 3 >T 2 >T 5 >T 6 >T 1 . . Maximum straw yield (11.66 t/ha) was found in treatment T due to application of 0.25 mM SA and minimum straw yield (9.84 t/ha) was found in T 2 having 2 mM SA which was statistically identical with the control, T 1 6 . The treatments can be arranged according to straw yield as T 2 >T 4 >T 3 >T 5 >T 6 >T . This experiment showed that the maximum grain yield was found in the treatment T 1 but the maximum biomass production was found in the Treatment T 2 4 . From these results it can be concluded that some of the important growth parameters and yield contributing characters were improved due to the foliar spray of SA resulting higher yield of BRRI dhan29. No negative effect was found on BRRI dhan29 due to the foliar spray of SA upto 2.0 mM. The positive effect of low doses of SA was observed on yield and yield contributing characters of BRRI dhan29. The obtained results might be due to the increase of photosynthate, alleviation of stress tolerance mechanism by producing lignin and suberin, enhancement of insect and pathogen resistance of plants and so on. Taken together, my results suggest that foliar spray of SA can be used in BRRI dhan29 cultivation in Bangladesh.