Vol. 12, Issue 2 (2023)

Author(s):
Jyothi Swaroopa Vadlamudi, Anitha S, Gajanan L Sawargaonkar, Prasad J Kamdi and Divya Vijayan

Abstract:
A field experiment was conducted at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad during early summer season in 2021 and 2022 to study the “Effect of foliar application of nano fertilizers on yield attributes, seed, and stalk yield of sunflower”. The soil was clayey (Vertisols) in texture and experiment was laid out in randomized block design with 3 replications and comprised of 12 treatments. The treatments comprise of conventional fertilizers, NPK (19:19:19), nano NPK (19:19:19) and nano boron applied as alone and combinations. Results revealed that application of conventional fertilizers as per recommended dose along with foliar application of nano (19:19:19) N P K @ 0.2% at 30 DAS and 60 DAS + nano boron @ 0.2% at ray floret opening stage (T₇) recorded higher capitulum weight (63.30 and 62.63 g), total number of seeds per capitulum (1102 and 1068), seed yield (1961 and 1915 kg/ha) and stalk yield (4193 and 3918 kg/ha) during both the years and was statistically on par with the treatment - Conventional fertilizers 50% as per Recommended dose + nano (19:19:19) N P K @ 0.2% as foliar spray at 30 DAS and 60 DAS + + nano boron @ 0.2% at ray floret opening stage. Absolute control recorded significantly lower seed yield (758 and 710 kg/ ha) and stalk yield (1684 and 1702 kg/ ha) as compared to all other treatments.