VARIETAL PERFORMANCE OF CAULIFLOWER INFLUENCED BY DIFFERENT FERTILIZER AND MANURE APPLICATIONS UNDER MANGO BASED AGROFORESTRY SYSTEM

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in the Agroforestry and Environment Research Field, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, during October 2016 to February 2017 to evaluate the varietal performance of cauliflower influenced by different fertilizer and manure applications under mango based agroforestry system. The experiment was laid out in two factors Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Three cauliflower varieties viz. Aksel (V1), Snowball-1 (V2) and Maghi (V3) were considered as factor A; while fertilizer and manure applications viz. no fertilizer (F1), chemical fertilizer (F2), cowdung (F3) and poultry (F4) were factor B. The data were collected at 15, 30, 45 and 60 DAT (days after transplanting) for plant height (cm), number of leaves per plant,outer leaf length (cm),outer leaf width (cm), curd size (cm2), yield of curd (t ha-1). The results revealed that fertilizer and manure applications had significant effect on the growth, yield contributing characters and yield of different cauliflower varieties.In case of main varietal effects, the highestand the lowest curd yield (30.78t ha-1) and (20.00t ha-1) were recorded in Snowball-1andAksel respectively. Again, in case of main effect of fertilizer and manure applications, the highest curd yield (36.47t ha-1) was found in chemical fertilizer application and the lowest yield (20.32 t ha-1) was found in no fertilizer application. Furthermore in case of the interaction effect of variety and fertilizer and manure applications, the maximumcurd yield (32.27 t ha-1) of cauliflower was recorded in Snowball-1varietywith chemical fertilizer application and the minimum yield (19.52 t ha-1) was recorded invariety Aksel with no fertilizer application. On the other hand, from the economic analysis, it was observed that the highest BCR (3.17) was found in the plot where Snowball-1 variety was cultivated with chemical fertilizerwhereas the lowest BCR (2.38) was received where variety Aksel was grown without fertilizer. Finally,it may be concluded that monitoring the yield and economic return among the three cauliflower varieties and different fertilizer and manure applications, the best performance according to yield were Snowball-1>Maghi>Aksel and chemical fertilizer>cowdung>poultry>no fertilizer under mango based agroforestry system. Though chemical fertilizer application gave maximum economic return, cauliflower variety Snowball-1 using cowdung may be a viable option for safe cauliflower production by considering the environmental benefit.