EFFECT OF Zn AND Mn ON GROWTH AND YIELD OF SUNFLOWER UNDER SALT STRESS CONDITION

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in pot house of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka during November 2021 to March 2022 to evaluate the effect of foliar application of Zn and Mn on the growth, yield contributing characters and yield of BARI Sunflower 2 under saline stress conditions. The experiment consisted of two factors as factor A; S 0 = Control, S 1 = 10 ds/m NaCl and S 2 = 20 ds/m NaCl; factor B; T 0 = water spray, T 1 = 0.5% Zn spray, T 2 = 0.5% Mn spray and T 3 = 0.5% Zn spray + 0.5% Mn spray. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Completely Block Design with three replications. Different growth and yield contributing traits, viz. plant height (cm), number of leaf, head diameter (cm), head weight (g), number of seed head -1 1 ) were studied. Treatment S 0 , 1000 seed weight (g) and yield (t ha (Control) produced the tallest plants at 30, 45 and 60 DAS (36.87, 49.50 and 85.33 cm) compared to other two levels of salinity. The treatment S 2 (20 ds m -1 NaCl) produced the shortest plant at 30, 45 and 60 DAS (31.67, 44.70 and 74.33 cm). The reproductive growth in the sunflower was higher for Zn and Mn spray rather water spray. The lowest yield (1.53 t ha ) was recorded in T 0 treatment. In treatment combination of zero saline and 0.5% Zn spray + 0.5% Mn spray (S 0 T 3 ) gave highest yield (2.93 t ha ), which was significantly higher than 20 ds/m NaCl and water spray (S 2 T 0 -1 ) (1.20 t ha ). Higher salinity level leads to the reduction of plant vegetative growth whereas, foliar spray of Zn and Mn compensate this trend significantly. The results indicated that foliar application of Zn and Mn was significantly improved the yield contributing parameters despite the effect of different level of salinity.