Impact of NPK Fertilization on Growth and Yield of Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) under Different Planting Methods

Abstract

S ugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is world's largest crop in terms of total production and one of the Pakistan's major cash crop (Khan et al., 2018). Sugarcane is the world's largest crop by production quantity, with 1.8 billion tons produced in 2017,with Brazilian counting for 40% of the world total. In 2012, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated it was cultivated on about 26 million hectares (64 million acres), in more than 90 countries (Wikipedia, 2020). Pakistan is the fifth largest sugarcane producer Abstract | The use of inorganic fertilizers in Pakistan is imbalanced and inappropriate. It is very important to use proper doses of balanced fertilizers to exploit the maximum yield potential of cane crop. This study focused on hypothesis that application of suitable planting methods and NPK level play a major role in improving sugarcane yield and quality. Experiment was performed under field conditions at Sugarcane Research Institute, Tandojam, Sindh, Pakistan (located at 250 25.19 N 680 32.07 E) during 2016-17, repeated in 2017-18 and data was averaged. The sugarcane variety PSTJ-41 was used for this study. The experiment was laid out in spilt plot design. Main-plot consisted of planting methods i.e. single set (parallel to furrow), double sett (parallel to furrow), single set (across furrow) whereas, sub-plot comprised of NPK levels i.e.166-084-165 kg ha -1 (25 % < recommended), 225-112-220 kg ha -1 (recommended), 281-140-275 kg ha -1 (25%>recommended). Results exhibited significant effects of planting methods and NPK application on most studied parameters. In case of planting methods, substantially higher seed germination (%), crop growth rate (g m -2 day -1 ), leaf area index (%), cane length (cm), internodes cane -1 , cane yield (t ha -1 ), brix (%) and commercial cane sugar (%)were recorded under double sett (parallel to furrow). As regards NPK levels, 281-140-275 kg ha -1 (25%>recommended) produced significantly increased in growth and yield characters particularly, cane yield (t ha -1 ) and brix (%). The findings of the study further suggested that interaction of double sett (parallel to furrow) with NPK levels 281-140-275 kg ha -1 (25%>recommended) resulted in highest performance of crop especially yield and quality traits.