Effect of Foliar Application Of Plant Growth Regulators On Crop Growth, Yield And Yield Contributing Quality Parameters In Potato

Abstract

The present investigation was conducted at research farm of Central Potato Research Institute Campus, Modipuram, Meerut (UP) during 2008 and 2009 to find out the foliar effect of two growth pro-moters gibberellic acid (GA3) and indole aetic acid (IAA) and growth retardant paclobutrazol (PBZ) ei-ther alone or in combination on crop growth, yield and tuber quality attributes of potato variety Kufri Pukhraj. The treatments included three doses of GA3 (50, 100 and 150 ppm), IAA (50, 100 and 150 ppm) and two doses of paclobutrazol (25 and 50 ppm) along control where no growth regulator was applied. In all there were 21 treatments which were replicated three times in randomized block design. Many crop growth parameters improved with application of low-er doses of growth promoters (GA3 50 ppm) applied at 35 DAP in combination with growth retardant (PBZ 25 ppm and PBZ 50 ppm) applied at 70 DAP. The proportion of marketable yield was highest 9.16% by application of GA3 50 ppm at 35 DAP and PBZ 25 ppm followed by treatment GA3 50 ppm at 35 DAP and PBZ 50 ppm applied at 70 DAP having an improvement of 6.74%. Therefore, these treat-ments may be exploited to enhance the crop growth as well as tuber quality without compromising tuber shape in this region.