Cumulative Effect of Soil and Foliar Application of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur on Growth, Physico-Biochemical Parameters, Yield Attributes, and Fatty Acid Composition in Oil of Erucic Acid-Free Rapeseed-Mustard Genotypes

Abstract

ABSTRACT The feasibility of split (soil + foliar) applications of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) and addition of a small quantity of sulfur (S) in the spray was tested for improving performance of rapeseed-mustard genotypes in a factorial randomized field experiment. Three genotypes (two erucic acid free, viz. Brassica napus L. cv. ‘Hyola PAC – 401’ and Brassica juncea L. Czern. and Coss. cv. ‘TERI (0E) M 21-Swarna’, and one best performing high yielding Brassica juncea L. cv. ‘Rohini’ as a check) were grown with four soil (B) plus foliar (F) applications of N, P, and S with uniform basal 30 kg potassium (K) ha− 1 (K30), viz. (i) the optimum soil-applied treatment supplemented with the spray of deionized water (BN90P30 + Fw) comprising control, (ii) BN70P30 + F N20, (iii) BN70P28 + FN20P2, and (iv) BN70P28 + FN20P2S2. Soil Plus foliar application of nutrients, particularly BN70P28 + FN20P2S2, improved their performance with respect to growth characteristics (shoot length plant− 1, leaf number plant− 1, area leaf− 1, leaf area index, fresh weight plant− 1, and dry weight plant− 1), physico-biochemical parameters (net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, carboxylation efficiency, water use efficiency, carbonic anhydrase activity, leaf NPK content, and N use efficiency), yield attributes (pod number plant− 1, seed number pod− 1, 1000-seed weight, seed yield ha− 1, oil content, and oil yield ha− 1), and fatty acid composition in oil of these genotypes. The cultivar ‘Hyola PAC-401’ performed best particularly with BN70P28 + FN20P2S2. The improvement in the response of genotypes to the split application of nutrients may be attributed to their ready availability through foliar application.