STUDY ON GROWTH AND DRY MATTER PARTITIONING IN GROUNDNUT GENOTYPES

Abstract

The experiment was carried out at the field laboratory of Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture, Mymensingh, to investigate the growth, some morphological features, dry matter production and its partitioning in four groundnut genotypes viz., GM-16, GM-35, GM-45 and Dhaka-1 during the period from December 2007 to May 2008. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Significant variations in morpho-physiological features, yield attributes and dry matter production and its partitioning into different plant parts were found among the four groundnut genotypes. High yielding genotypes had shorter plant height, greater branch number than the low yielder, Dhaka-l. The plant height, leaf area, leaf area index, total dry matter and absolute growth rate (at early growth stage) were superior in Dhaka-1 over its growth period followed by GM-35 but Dhaka-1 produced the lowest pod yield due to unfavorable DM distribution to the economic yield. In contrast, GM-45 performed inferiority in above studied parameters. GM-35 produced the highest pod yield (22.2 g plant" and 3.04 t h&') due to the production of bolder and higher number of pods plant' while Dhaka-1 showed the lowest pod yield although it had the highest number of pods planf' due to production of smaller pods. Total dry matter production and its partitioning into pod (economic yield) were significantly greater in three genotypes than the cultivar, Dhaka-1 with being the highest in GM-35.