Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai to study the influence of plant growth regulator (NAA 40 ppm) and foliar nutrition (DAP 2%, KCl 1%) on summer irrigated cotton for enhancing the productivity along with recommended dose of fertilizers 60:30:30 Kg N,P 2 O 5 ,K 2 O ha -1 . The growth characters of cotton such as plant height, leaf area index and plant dry matter production at various stages crop growth (60,90 and 120 DAS) were greatly influenced by application of RDF NPK with NAA 40 ppm and DAP 2% foliar spray either at peak flowering and boll development stages or at squaring peak flowering stages. Yield attributes of cotton viz., number of symbodial branches plant-1 , fruiting points plant -1 , bolls plant -1 and boll weight were increased in the alone promising treatments as compared to control and other treatments. As a result, higher seed cotton yield (19.29 q ha-1 ) was obtained in cotton receiving RDF and sprayed with NAA 40 ppm and DAP 2% either at square formation and peak flowering or peak flowering and boll development stage. Quality characters of cotton like seed index, lint index, ginning percentage, Bartlett's index, bundle strength and fibre finess were not influenced.

Keywords: Summer irrigated cotton, PGR, Foliar nutrition, yield, quality parameters