MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS IN BT COTTON AS INFLUENCED BY THE SPLIT APPLICATION OF NITROGEN APPLIED AT DIFFERENT GROWTH STAGES UNDER THE AGRO-CLIMATIC CONDITION OF DERA GHAZI KHAN, PAKISTAN

摘要

Nitrogen plays a significant role to improve the growth and yield of cotton. Plant growth, assimilation, morpho-physiological expressions and photosynthate translocation are closely related to nutrients availability. A field trial to evaluate the response of different nitrogen splits on growth and yield components of cotton was conducted under the agro climatic conditions of Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan during 2012. Fuzzy seed (@ 20 kg ha^-1 of cotton genotype (BT-MNH 886) was sown under Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Fixed nitrogen (N) dose (375 kg ha^-1) which (375 kg ha^-1), was applied in four treatments as a source of nitrogen; T₁=5 N splits (@75.00 kg ha^-1 per split), T₂=6 N splits (@62.50 kg ha^-1 per split), T₃=7 N splits (@53.57.00 kg ha^-1 per split), and T₄=8 N splits (@46.87 kg ha^-1 per split). The data were recorded on the basis of yield and yield attributes of cotton crop that included plant height, leaf area index (LAI), number of bolls per plant, bolls weight and seed cotton yield. On increasing N splits, vegetative characteristic of cotton i.e., plant height was improved while, features like leaf area index, bolls weight and seed cotton yield increased up to certain level of N splits, T3 (7 splits). Further, N split (8 splits in T₄) caused decrease in all these features except for plant height. So the growth and yield performance of cotton genotype (BT-886) was significantly influenced up to 7 splits of nitrogen fertilizer, improving morphological characteristics of cotton crop ultimately enhancing the seed cotton yield.