ABSTRACT
Total four experiments were conducted in the different ecological zones of the province i.e. Southern, Northern and Central zones in order to find out the suitable time of earthing up for obtaining maximum yield of sunflower crop in NWFP. The average data of four locations revealed that sunflower gave highest yield if the earthing up is completed before bud formation. However, seed yield is decreased when earthing up is delayed. It is, therefore, recommended that earthing up before bud formation is necessary for obtaining higher returns from sunflower with respect to seed yield.
PDF Abstract XML References Citation
How to cite this article
DOI: 10.3923/ajps.2002.269.270
URL: https://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=ajps.2002.269.270
INTRODUCTION
Sunflower (Helianthus annus L) is the second important source of edible oil in the world after soybean (Usman et al., 1980). It contains 40% oil and 20% protein. Its oil cake is utilized for poultry feed, as cooking oil, salad oil, making soap, drugs, fertilizers etc. It contains 60-70% polly unsaturated fatty acid (Usman et al., 1980a). Sunflower was introduced during 1960 and its cultivation in NWFP was started in 1972-73 with total areas of 17 areas. Its cultivation gradually increased due to favorable climate and soil condition for successful cultivation of sunflower twice a year in the province. Every year, Govt of Pakistan spent a lot of foreign exchange on the import of edible oil, therefore it is a need of day to increase per ha yield to achieve self-sufficiency in edible oils (Usman and Khan, 2001).
Cheema et al. (1984) conducted trial on earthing up of sunflower during spring 1973-74 and concluded that earthing up at bud formation stage gave 10.71 percent more yields as compared to control. Cobia and Zimmer (1975) recommended that sunflower crop give more yield, resistant to lodging when the earthing up is completed before flowering. Vranceanu and Stoeneseu (1972) completed the earthing up of sunflower in time but they found more lodging effect in open pollinated variety Record as compared to single hybrids. Roath and Miller (1982) reported significant effect on the environment on seed set in sunflower. Usman et al. (1980) found that earthing up should be done at the stage when the plants reached to 65 cm tall to prevent lodging. In Russia 80 percent of the total requirements is met from this crop. Similarly USA, Canada, South Africa, Romania, Iran and Turkey are now raising sunflower on commercial basis (Sharif and Khan, 1979). As little information was available regarding the effect of earthing up on the yield of sunflower, therefore, an experiment was laid out during spring sowing 1996 and 1997 to find out the suitable time of earthing up for maximum yield from sunflower crop in NWFP.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Four experiments were conducted in different ecological zones of the province i.e., ARI, D. I. Khan, ARI, Tarnab and on the farmers field at Chakdara, (Dir) under irrigated condition during spring season 1996 and 1997. Hybrid ARITAR-93 was planted on RCB design with four replications. Fertilizer at the rate of 2.5 bags DAP and 5 bags urea ha-1 (138:58: kg NP) were used in the trial. All the phosphatic and half doze of urea fertilizers were applied before sowing, while the remaining dose of urea was applied before flowering i.e at the stage of earthing up. Planting was done with hand hoe. Row to row spacing was 75 cm, however plant to plant space was 20-25 cm.
Four treatments consisting of flat sowing (control), earthing up before bud formation stage, earthing up at bud formation and earthing up at flowering stage were used in the trial. For replications, each treatment covered plot size of 5 x 3 m2. The management practices were kept constant for all the plots from sowing to harvesting. The data were recorded on various parameters like days to flowering, head diameter (cm), lodging %, days to maturity, plant population and grain yield (gm). The mean data of each family were subjected to the analysis of technique (Steel and Torrie, 1980).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Data in Table 1 shows that T4 (earthing up at flowering stage) took more days to flower initiation and also mature in 109 days.
Table 1: | Effect of earthing up operation on the seed yield and other characteristics of sunflower at ARI, D.I. Khan during spring-96 |
Table 2: | Effect of earthing up operation on the seed yield and other characteristics of sunflower at ARI, D.I. Khan during spring 1997 |
Table 3: | Effect of earthing up operation on the seed yield and other characteristics of sunflower at ARI, Tarnab, Peshawar during spring, 1997 |
Table 4: | Effect of earthing up operation on the seed yield and other characteristics of sunflower at Chakdara (Dir) during spring, 1997 |
Table 5: | Seed yield and days to maturity combined over four locations. |
Maximum lodging obtained from T1, T2 gave the highest grain yield of 1143 kg ha-1, followed by T3 giving 1120 kg ha-1. It is concluded that earthing up before bud formation can minimize the lodging and gave more yields however, seed yield is decreased when earthing up is delayed. Similar results were reported by Robinson (1973) and Put (1967).
Data presented in Table 2 revealed that except lodging %age, all other characters were found significant, maximum lodging were found in T1, while best head diameter size were found in T3. Highest grain yield was obtained from T2 i.e. 1200 kg ha-1, however, the lowest yield was obtained by T1 i.e. 683 kg ha-1. It is concluded that earthing up gave more yield and resistant to lodging if it is completed before bud formation. These findings are supported by the Chemma et al. (1984), who concluded that earthing up gave more yields as compared to flat sowing. Similar results obtained from the trials conducted at ARI, Tarnab, Peshawar (Table 3) and Chakdara (Dir) (Table 4).
Combined locations: In the combined locations data in Table 5 shows that the crop is matured early in T1, followed by T4, however T2 and T3 matured in 110 days. Similarly, the highest yield of 1608 kg ha-1 was obtained by T2, followed by T3, however the lowest yield of 936 kg ha-1 was obtained from T1, followed by T4.
It was concluded from the results and discussion of all the four locations that sunflower crop is resistant to lodging, give more yield when the earthing up is completed before bud formation, however, seed yield is decreased when earthing up is delayed. It is, therefore, recommended that earthing up before bud formation of sunflower crop is necessary for the growers to get maximum yield in NWFP.