Vol. 11, Issue 8 (2022)

Author(s):
Sneha MA, BK Desai, MR Umesh, BG Koppalkar and PH Kuchanur

Abstract:
A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of planting density and fertilizer rate on performance of newly developed sunflower hybrids. The objective of the study was to find out optimum row spacing and fertilizer rate for new sunflower hybrids of UAS Raichur. Experiment was laid out in split-split plot design with three replications. The treatments consisted of sunflower hybrids RSFH-12-700, RSFH-12-705 and RSFH 1887 as main plots, row spacings at 60 cm and 75 cm as sub plots and fertilizer rate at 100, 125 and 150% RDF as sub-sub plots. The results revealed that sunflower hybrid RSFH-12-700 has recorded 7.98 and 15.58 percent higher seed yield (2144 kg ha^-1) compared to RSFH-12-705 and RSFH 1887, respectively. The growth and yield attributes viz., plant height, number of leaves, leaf area index (LAI), leaf area duration (LAD), crop growth rate (CGR), stalk yield, harvest index (HI), oil content and oil yield were also higher in RSFH-12-700. Narrow row spacing at 60 cm had significant effect on growth attributes viz., plant height, leaf area index, LAD, CGR and HI. Whereas, application of 150% RDF has produced significantly higher seed yield (2104 kg ha^-1), growth and yield parameters but on par with 125% RDF and superior over 100 percent RDF. It was concluded that the new sunflower hybrid RSFH-12-700 showed greater growth and yield at optimum plant spacing of 60 cm and 150% recommended dose of fertilizers.