Abstract:
The field experiment was conducted at the research field of Department of Agronomy,
Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU) during the period of November, 2020 to
April 2021 to evaluate the influence of soil and foliar applied micronutrients (B, Mn,
Zn) on sunflower for improving physiological traits, yield and oil content. The
experiment consisted of micronutrient application method and micronutrient
combination. The application methods were F
1
= Soil application of micronutrient and
F
2
= Foliar application of micronutrient. The 7 micronutrient treatments were T
1
=
Boron, T
2
= Manganese, T
3
= Zinc T
4
= Boron+ Manganese T
5
= Boron+ Zinc T
6
=
Manganese+ Zinc and T
7
= Boron+ Manganese+ Zinc. The foliar micronutrient
application rate was H
3
BO
4
= 0.5 g L
-1
or @ 0.5%, MnSO
4
= 1 g L
or @ 1% and
ZnSO
4
= 2 g L
-1
or @ 2% and applied at 30 days after sowing (DAS), 50 DAS and 70
DAS. Micronutrients were applied, boron as boric acid (12 kg ha
), zinc as zinc
sulphate (10 kg ha
-1
) and manganese as manganese sulphate (12 kg ha
) during final
land preparation. The recommended dose of N as Urea, P as TSP and K as MoP
(180:150:120 kg ha
-1
) were applied along with soil application and foliar application of
micronutrient. The experiment was laid out in a RCBD factorial design with three
replications. The result revealed that, F
2
(foliar application) showed significantly better
crop growth like plant height at all the growth stages, number of leaf plant
, leaf area
index, dry matter weight, relative water content and yield contributing traits like head
diameter (13.7 cm), seed head
-1
(20.37), stover yield (55.12 g plant
-1
), seed yield (20.37
g plant
-1
), biological yield (87.86 g), harvest index (31.03%) and protein percentage
(44.4%). The micronutrient treatment T
5
= (B+ Zn), T
6
(B+ Mn) and T
7
(B+ Mn+ Zn)
showed the better performance in different yield contributing parameters. Treatment
interaction of micronutrients with foliar application showed better results in yield
components like head diameter, 1000 seed weight, seed head
-1
, seed yield, stover yield,
biological yield, harvest index, oil percentage and protein percentage.
Description:
A Thesis Submitted to
The Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture,
Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka,
in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTERS OF SCIENCE (MS)
IN
AGRONOMY
