Effect of different levels of nitrogen in combination with nano urea on growth and yield of crossandra (crossandra infundibuliformis l.) cv. lakshmi

Abstract

An experiment was carried out during the year 2022-2024 in the Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University Tamil Nadu to find out the suitable level of nitrogen to be used in combination with nano urea to increase the growth and yield of crossandra (Crossandra infundibuliformis L.) cv. Lakshmi. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with 14 treatments and 3 replications. Among the different treatments, the treatment T5 (100% PK + 75% N through urea + 0.4% Nano urea (3 sprays)) resulted in increased growth attributes such as plant height (85.21 cm), stem girth (7.95 cm), number of branches plant-1 (24.51), number of leaves plant-1 (99.29), plant spread in North-South and East-West direction (53.52 cm and 62.43 cm respectively), leaf area (95.41cm2 ), chlorophyll content (0.840 mg g-1 ) and dry matter production (91.53 g plant-1 ). But, the treatment T8 (100% PK + 50% N through urea + 0.4% Nano urea (3 sprays)) resulted in increased yield attributes like maximum number of spikes plant-1 (36.27),number of flowers spike-1 (39.21), flower yield plant -1 (51.03 g),flower yield plot-1 (974.76 g plot-1 ), estimated flower yield hectare-1 (32.49 q ha-1 ) The treatment control (T1) had the lowest value for all the growth and yield attributing characters. Overall, it is concluded that the application of 100% PK + 50% N through urea + 0.4% Nano urea (3 sprays) (T8) was found to be the best combination for improving the growth and yield of crossandra.