Research Article
Sowing Date Cum Varietal Trial on Wheat
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M. S. Cheema
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Liaquat Ali
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Moazzam Jamil
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Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the main food crop of Pakistan, which is grown on an area of 8.463 million hectares with an annual production of 21.078 million tones of grain, giving an average yield of 2.491 tones per hectare during the year 1999-2000 (Anonymous, 2002). This yield of wheat is far below than the potential yield. Despite all out efforts made in this direction, yield of wheat is a result of many contributing factors, among these the time of sowing is an important one and can only be achieved by sowing of wheat crop at its appropriate time. Late sowing beyond certain limits lowers the grain yield significantly.
Weight were reduced by delayed sowing. Ali et al. (1982) concluded that yield of all the cultivars were similar in spite of differences in yield components. They further observed that 1000- grain weight was maximum for blue silver (41.6 gm) and the minimum for SA-75 (35.1 gm), while harvest index was higher in SA-75 than in other cultivars. They also concluded that delayed sowing reduced stand density, number of grains per ear and grain yield.
Kalyan et al. (1985) said that the wheat crop sown on 21 Nov. resulted in 6.9 tones ha-1 and 18% higher yield in the 2 years, respectively, than those sown on 6 Dec. Phadnawis and Saini (1992) reported grain yield decreased from 686.89 to 166.28 gm m-2 with delay in sowing dates form 2nd Nov. to 17th Feb. Grain yield was positively correlated with total grain number m-2, mean grain weight and number of ears m-2.
Raj et al. (1992) concluded that grain yield of wheat cultivar WH-283 was decreased from delaying after Nov. 28. Dabre et al. (1993) observed that the highest grain yield were obtained from sowing on Nov. 15. It was suggested that increasing the sowing rate where sowing is delayed may check any yield decrease. Lathwal and Thakral (1999) concluding that plant height, grain yield, straw yield and harvest index decreased with the delay in sowing. An increase of 48 and 39% in grain yield was observed from 5th and 15th November sowing compared with 5th December.
Kumar et al. (2000) observed that wheat growth was better when sown on 20th November than on 1th November or 10th December, although there was little grain yield difference between the two dates in November. Wheat cv. WH 542 gave higher yield than HD 2329 and WH 533.
Keeping in view all these, this study was conducted to find out the appropriate sowing time for newly evolved wheat varieties/cultivars under irrigated conditions of Bahawalpur.
The study was carried out at Agronomic Research Station, Bahawalpur, Pakistan during the year 1997-98 and 1998-99 to find out the appropriate sowing time of newly evolved wheat varieties/cultivars for maximum grain yield. The trial was laid out in split plot design, and a pot size of 2.4 X 6m2 having varieties in main plots and sowing dates in sub-plots. Standard dose of NPK fertilizer (112,84,0 kg ha-1 ) was applied as blank application. The experiment involved the following levels of two factors:
Factor 1: Varieties/cultivars
V1 | = | Inqlab-91 | V4 | = | 7061 |
V2 | = | Punjab-96 | V5 | = | MH-97 |
V3 | = | 95-IB-4173 | V6 | = | 92128 |
V7 | = | 92145 |
Factor II: Sowing dates
D1 | = | Ist November of year 1997 to 1998 |
D2 | = | 15th November of year 1997 to 1998 |
D3 | = | 30th November of year 1997 to 1998 |
D4 | = | 15th December of year 1997 to 1998 |
D5 | = | 30th December of year 1997 to 1998 |
D6 | = | 15th January of year 1998 to 1999 |
The observations were recorded for grain yield and yield components. Data collected were analyzed statistically using least significant difference test at five percent level of probability (Steel and Torrie, 1984).
Wheat grain yield (kg ha-1): The analysis of variance (Table 1) showed that significant differences among wheat varieties/cultivars for all the characteristics at different sowing dates. Data (Table 1) revealed superiority of Inqlab91 over others and among sowing dates, (D2) 15th Nov. and (D3) 30th Nov. were the best for all growth parameters and consequently the grain yield.
The highest mean grain yield of 4255 kg ha-1 was obtained when crop was sown on 15th Nov. (D2) followed by 4212.84 kg ha-1 for sowing on 30th Nov. (D3). As far as variety was concerned Inqlab-91 (V1) and 7061 (V4 ) gave reasonably higher grain yield in all the cases even up to 15th Dec (D4). Similar findings were reported by Kalyan et al. (1985), Phadnawis and Saini (1992), Raj et al. (1992) and Dabre et al. (1993).
1000-grain weight (g): The maximum 1000-grain weight was attained on 15th Nov. (D2) for all the varieties/cultivars followed non significantly by Ist Nov. (D1), 30th Nov. (D3) and 15th Dec. (D4) (Table 2). After these dates the growth parameter was decreased significantly. Similar findings were reported by Randhawa et al. (1981), Phadnawis and Saini (1992). Regardless of the sowing time all the varieties/cultivars were statistically at par for 1000- grain weight.
Table 1: | Wheat grain yield (kg ha-1 ) of different varieties (V) at different sowing dates (D) of year 1997-98 to 1998-99 |
Table 2: | 1000- grain weight (g) of different wheat varieties (V) at different sowing dates (D) of year 1997-1998 to 1998-99 |
Table 3: | Number of fertile tillers (m-2) of different wheat varieties (V) at different sowing dates (D) of year 1997-1998 to 1998-1999. |
No. of fertile tillers: The maximum number of fertile tillers were attained on 15th Nov. (D2) for all varieties/cultivars followed non-significantly by 30th Nov. (D3). Before or after these dates, this growth parameter was decreased significantly (Table 3). Similar findings were reported by Randhawa et al. (1981), Phadnawis and Saini (1992). The interaction between wheat varieties /cultivars and sowing dates was also significant, however mean values for all the varieties/cultivars were statistically same for this yield component.
On the basis of two years results it was concluded that sowing of wheat crop from 15th Nov. (D2) to 30th Nov. (D3) resulted in a significantly higher values as compared to rest of sowing dates.