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Environment & Ecology 33 (3A) : 1249—1253, July—September 2015 Website: environmentandecology.com ISSN 0970-0420
Effect of Plant Growth Regulators and Sulfur on Productivity and Nutrient Concentration of Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) S. K. Meena, N. L. Jat, Babloo Sharma, V. S. Meena
Received 16 July 2014; Accepted 17 November 2014; Published online 28 November 2014
Abstract This paper focuses on the effect of plant growth regulators and sulfur on productivity of coriander. Results showed that application of thiourea @ 500 ppm as foliar spray being at par with triacontanol @ 1000 ppm and brassinolide @ 1.0 ppm significantly increased total chlorophyll content in leaves over water spray. Whereas, dry matter accumulation per plant, seed, straw, biological yields, N and S content in both seed and straw increased significantly with 500 ppm thiourea spray as compared to water spray and brassinolide but remained at par with 1000 ppm triacontanol. Application of sulfur in increasing levels up to 40 kg/ha significantly increased the dry matter accumulation per plant, chlorophyll content in leaves seed, straw, biological yield, N and S concentration of coriander over control and 20 kg S/ha.
S. K. Meena*, N. L. Jat Department of Agronomy, S. K. N. College of Agriculture, Jobner, Rajasthan 303329, India B. Sharma Department of Soil and Water Conservation, BCKV, Mohanpur, Nadia 741252, West Bengal, India V. S. Meena Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India e-mail:
[email protected] *Correspondence
Keywords Triacontanol, Brassinolides, Thiourea, Productivity, Coriandrum sativum.
Introduction Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) is one of the important seed spices crop, native of Mediterranean region and belonging to family Umbeliferae. A pleasant aromatic odour is present in the stem, leaves and fruits of coriander, which is due to an essential oil containing mainly linalool or coriandrol [1]. Coriandrum sativum is an ayurvedic medicinal herb, which is widely used as flavoring agent for its unique smell and flavour. Coriander is an important source of chemicals of α-pinene, α-terpinene, limonene and ncymene together with various non-linalool alcohols and esters [2]. The young plant and Dry seeds are extensively used in pickle preparation, curry powder seasoning preparing chutney and It is also considered to be carminative, diuretic, stomachachic, tonic, antiblious, refrigerant and aphrodisiac [3]. There is a lot of potential for coriander seed spices in our country because of the export potential and daily internal consumption as it finds place in almost all the Indian dishes.
India has been recognized as a land of spices and at present it is the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter of the seed spices. In India, it is mainly cultivated in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and
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Table 1. Effect of plant growth regulators and sulfur levels on growth and yield parameters of coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.). *PGRs were applied at 45 DAS.
Treatment Plant growth regulators Water spray Brassinolides @ 1.0 ppm Triacontanol @ 1000 ppm Thiourea @ 500 ppm Sulfur levels (kg/ha) 0 20 40 60 SEm± CD (p = 0.05)
Chlorophyll content Dry matter accumulation (mg/g of Yield per plant (g) fresh weight) (kg/ha) 45 90 At har- 9 0 DAS* DAS vest DAS Seed Straw
Biological
Harvest index (%)
0.212 0.215 0.219 0.220
4.221 4.679 5.127 5.240
8.261 9.086 9.785 10.454
2.42 2.61 2.62 2.70
120.2 1290 1359 1405
1742 1829 1860 1946
2944 3119 3219 3351
40.83 41.36 42.22 41.93
0.191 0.210 0.224 0.236 0.05 0.014
4.199 4.695 5.144 5.229 0.122 0.340
8.341 9.263 9.963 10.018 0.237 0.679
2.32 2.54 2.72 2.77 0.06 0.17
1120 1312 1394 1429 27 97
1547 1806 1991 2033 40 115
2667 3118 3385 3462 69 200
41.99 42.08 41.18 41.28 0.82 NS
Orissa. Rajasthan ranks first in area and production (57%) of coriander in India, but the productivity of this crop is very low (India 737 kg/ha and Rajasthan 1183 kg/ha) as compared with its average potential of 1500 kg/ha. During recent years the use of plant growth regulators may be one of the best possible way to achieve spectacular progress in crop production and productivity. Since, little information is available in literatures on the effect of PGRs and sulfur on growth and yields of coriander. Therefore, the objective of present study was to evaluate the effect of plant growth regulators and sulfur on productivity of coriander.
Materials and Methods A field experiment was conducted at Agronomy farm, S. K. N. College of Agriculture, Jobner (Rajasthan) during rabi season, 2009-10 (located at 26°05´ N latitude, 75°20´ E and 427 m above MSL) with an average annual rainfall of 400 to 500 mm. Experimental soil have loamy sand in texture, slightly alkaline in reaction (pH 8.2), poor in organic carbon (0.16%) with low available nitrogen (127 kg/ha), medium in phosphorus (16.6 kg/ha) and potassium (175 kg/ha) and low in sulfur content (8.20 ppm). The experiment consisting of four PGRs (water spray, 1.0 ppm Brassinolide, 1000
ppm Triacontanol, and 500 ppm Thiourea) and four levels of sulfur (0, 20, 40 and 60 kg/ha) making 16 treatment combinations under randomized block design (RBD) with three replications. The coriander variety RCr-446 was sown on November 2009 with rows spaced at 30 cm apart. A uniform basal dose of 60 kg N and 30 kg P2O5 / ha through urea and DAP were given and Sulfur was incorporated into the soil before sowing as per treatment through agricultural grade gypsum (12% S). Two foliar spray of brassinolide @ 1.0 ppm, triacontanol @ 1000 ppm and thiourea @ 500 ppm were done through godrej double (0.1%), miraculan (0.5%), and thiourea (99.9%) respectively at 45 and 80 days after sowing. The data recorded on various parameters of coriander were analyzed following standard statistical analysis of variance procedure for randomized block design as suggested by Gomez and Gomez [4]. Results and Discussion Growth parameters The plant growth parameters i.e. dry matter accumulation and chlorophyll content were significantly influenced by application of different PGRs. Among
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Table 2. Effect of plant growth regulators and sulfur on nutrient concentration in seed and straw of coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.).
Treatment
N concentration (%) Seed Straw
S concentration (%) Seed Straw
2.831
0.928
0.287
0.105
3.114
1.002
0.316
0.115
3.260
1.012
0.319
0.118
3.272
2.041
0.327
0.128
Plant growth regulators Water spray Brassinolide @ 1.0 ppm Triacontanol @ 1000 ppm Thiourea @ 500 ppm
Yield and its attributes
Sulfur levels (kg/ha) 0 20 40 60 SEm± CD (p=0.05)
phyll content in coriander leaves by 7.85, 8.27 and 11.57% over water spray, respectively (Table 1). This finding is in conformity with Grag et al. [7]. Sulfur fertilization up to 40 kg/ha significantly increased chlorophyll content by 17.24 and 7.09% respectively, over control and 20 kg S/ha. Further increase in sulfur level did not influenced chlorophyll content. Sulfur is also involved in the formation of chlorophyll and protein synthesis. Due to better availability of sulfur, the activities of various enzyme were enhancedthat led to increase in total chlorophyll content in leaves of coriander. This confirms the findings of Jat [8] in coriander, Pratap et al. [9] in fennel and Kumawat et al. [10] in fenugreek.
2.791 3.104 3.286 3.295 0.061 0.177
0.836 0.984 1.075 1.088 0.019 0.056
0.272 0.306 0.328 0.341 0.008 0.022
0.089 0.113 0.125 0.129 0.003 0.008
PGRs, Foliar spray of 500 ppm Thiourea enhanced significantly dry matter accumulation per plant at 90 DAS and at harvest, but statistically at par with 1000 ppm Triacontanol (Table 1). The percent of dry matter accumulation increased due to spray of 500 ppm thiourea by 12.0, 24.14% at 90 DAS and 15.07, 26.55% at harvest, respectively over 1.0 ppm brassinolide and water spray. The favorable effect of thiourea on plant growth might be due to improved photosynthetic efficiency and bio-regulatory role in plants due to presence of SH-group, which has diverse biological activities such as diversion of photosynthets from source to sink. Similar findings also reported by Balai and Keshwa [5] and Sanu et al. [6] in coriander. Dry matter production was significantly affected by Sulfur fertilization. The percent increase in dry matter accumulation per plant with addition of sulfur up to 40 kg S/ha was 17.28 and 6.67% at 45 DAS, 22.51 and 9.56% at 90 DAS and 19.45 and 7.56% at harvest, respectively, over control and 20 kg/ha. Foliar spray of PGRs viz., 1.0 ppm brassinolide, 1000 ppm triacontrol and 500 ppm thiourea was at par among each other significantly improved the chloro-
The data (Table 1) showed that application of 500 ppm thiourea as spray produced significantly more seed yield (1405 kg/ha), straw yield (1946 kg/ha) and biological yields (3351 kg/ha) of coriander over water spray and 1.0 ppm brassinolide but statistically at par to 1000 ppm triacontanol. The increase in yields due to application of PGRs may be due to the stimulatory effect of growth regulators which induce large number of reproductive sinks leading to greater activity of carboxylating enzymes thus resulting in higher photosynthetic rates with greater translocation and accumulation of metabolites in sink [11] and ultimately higher seed yield. Similar response with foliar spray of thiourea was also recorded earlier [5, 6] in coriander. The yield of coriander was significantly influenced by fertilization of sulfur levels up to 40 kg/ha. Thereafter, the increase was non significant. Significantly highest seed yield (1394 kg/ha), straw yield (1991 kg/ha) and biological yield (3385 kg/ha) were recorded upto 40 kg/ha which registered 24.46, 28.71% and 26.92% higher seed, straw and biological yield over control, respectively. Increased content of sulfur in plant helped in better development and thickening of xylem, collenchyma tissue, such favorable effects might have resulted in stronger stem and increasing photosynthetic as well as meristematic activities which might have promoted vegetative growth consequently resulted in more seed and straw yields. These results are in line of work reported by Pratap et
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al. [9] in fennel, Patel [12] in cumin and Gupta and Yadav [13] in fenugreek. The harvest index was not remarkably influenced by increasing levels of sulfur and PGRs applications (Table 1).
References 1.
Nutrient concentration 2.
Data (Table 2) revealed that nitrogen and sulfur concentration in both seed and straw of coriander was influenced significantly by all the PGRs over water spray but difference among them was not-significant. Foliar application of 500 ppm thiourea, 1000 ppm triacontanol and 1.0 ppm brassinolide was increased nitrogen and sulfur concentration in seed over water spray by 15.58, 15.15, 10.0 and 13.94, 11.15, 10.11%, respectively. The corresponding nitrogen concentration in straw was increase to the extent of 12.18, 9.05 and 7.97%. While, maximum sulfur concentration in straw was recorded with 500 ppm thiourea which was significantly higher by 21.91, 11.30 and 8.47% over water spray, brassinolide, and triacontanol, respectively. These results are agreed with that of Balai and Keshwa [5] and Sanu et al. [6]. Further Data showed that sulfur application significantly improved the nitrogen and sulfur concentration in both seed and straw of coriander. The application of 40 kg S/ha significantly recorded an increase of 17.74, 5.86, 20.59 and 7.19% higher nitrogen and sulfur concentration in seed and 28.59, 9.25, 40.45 and 10.62% in straw over control and 20 kg S/ha, respectively. Increased availability of nutrients in root zone coupled with increased metabolic activity at the cellular level might have increased the nitrogen and sulfur uptake by crop. The similar trends are reported in cumin [8, 12, 14].
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Conclusion Based on the above findings it is concluded that application of 500 ppm thiourea as foliar spray twice at 45 and 80 dys after sowing and soil applied sulfur at 40 kg/ha is recommended as these treatments fetched significantly higher dry matter accumulation, chlorophyll content, seed yield, straw yield, biological yield and N and S concentration both in seed and straw of coriander. However, the findings are being based on one year experimentation need confirmation for further trials.
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