Document Type : Original Article
Authors
Field Crop and Medicinal Plant/ Salahaddin University / Agricultural engineering Science College/ Erbil
Abstract
The growing global population and rapid urbanization have put heaviness on farmers to produce more food, leading to increased fertilizer use. This study aimed to explore the effect of application of different levels of nano - conventional NPK foliar applications which was applied at level (F1= Control (no fertilizer), F2= NPK fertilizer of soil application with 240 kg ha-1 (according to standard recommendation), foliar application of Nano NPK with different levels (F3 = 100 ppm (parts per million), F4 = 150 ppm and F5= 200 ppm, while conventional NPK foliar application were: ( F6= 300 ppm, F7= 500 ppm, F8 = 700 ppm), at two stages (30 and 55) days after planting during two seasons. The second factor was two distances between the row, (50 and 70 cm) with 30 cm distance between plants. A factorial experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. Data collection were considered to analyze the yield components and seed quality of sunflower crop. The statistical analysis results indicated a significant effect of studied factors and their interactions on most of the studied traits. The recommended soil NPK fertilizer affected significantly on all of the growth parameters which included the highest values for head diameter (17.97 and 19.62 cm), weight of head (363.33 and 248.00 g plant -1), 1000 seed weight (131.65 and 116.21 g) and seed yield (4.40 and 6.02 t ha-1) while the control treatment recorded lowest values for most of studied traits at both growing seasons. Simultaneously, nano NPK application demonstrated positive effects on sunflower quality parameters, leading to increase oil % reached to 26.74 and 25.17 % for F4 treatment. Also, nano NPK foliar application resulted an increased protein percentage and protein yield at F8 treatment, as well as nitrogen content in the seeds compared to lower levels. Overall, conventional NPK foliar application had a more significant impact compared to nano NPK application. Plant density had a significant effect on yield component and quality parameters of sunflower seeds row spacing of 70 cm. Maximum values were observed in all traits except nitrogen %.
Keywords
)
