Response of mungbean to foliar application of nitrogen and micronutrients during reproductive stages

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the pot yard of Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture, Mymensingh during the period from February to May 2017 to investigate the effect of foliar application of nitrogen and micronutrients on crop characters, yield attributes and yield of two mungbean genotypes. The experiment comprised four levels of nutrients foliar application like, i) T1 = Control; ii) T2 = Foliar application of urea at the rate of 1.5% four times from flowering start to pod development stage with an interval of 4 days; iii) T3 = T2 + 0.1% micronutrients (B, Mo, Zn, Mn, Ca, Fe, Cu) four times from flowering start to pod development stage with an interval of 4 days and iv); T4 = T3 + side dressing (soil application) of 1.5% N and 0.1% micronutrients solution four times from flowering start to pod development stage with an interval of 4 days. The genotypes were Binamoog-6 and Binamoog-7. Results revealed that morphological (plant height, branch and leaf number, leaf area plant-1), physiological (total dry mass plant-1, specific leaf weight, chlorophyll), yield attributes (number of pods plant-1, pod length, single pod weight, number of seeds pod-1 and 100-seed weight) and yield increased in foliar nutrients applied plants over control but the increment was greater in T2 and T3 than the T4 treatment. The highest plant height, branch and leaf number, leaf area, total dry mass, pod number, pod length, 100-seed weight and seed yield were recorded in T2 followed by T3 with same statistical rank (in most cases). The lowest morpho-physiological, yield attributes and yield were recorded in T1 (control) plants. Binamoog-7 was superior in most of plant parameters and yield compared to Binamoog-6.