Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Research

Research Article

Effect of Source and Placement Timings of Nitrogen Fertilizers on

Growth and Yield of Raya (Brassica juncea L.)
Malik Muhammad Yousaf1*, Muhammad Zeshan1,2, Mumtaz Hussain1, Muhammad Mohsin Raza1,
Muhammad Jahangir Shah1, Bashir Ahmed1 and Sabir Hussain Shah3
1
Arid Zone Research Institute, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Bahawalpur, Pakistan; 2National Institute for
Genomics and Advanced Biotechnology (NIGAB), National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan; 3Department
of Agricultural Sciences, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Abstract | A field experiment was conducted to examine the efficacy of the source of N and its placement
timings on growth and yield of raya. The experiment was laid out in the factorial arrangement within ran-
domized complete block design (RCBD). Two sources of nitrogen i.e. urea and calcium ammonium nitrate
(CAN) and three nitrogen placement timings i.e. ½ at rauni + ½ at flowering (T1), ½ at sowing + ½ at flow-
ering (T2) and ½ at 1st irrigation + ½ at flowering (T3) were included in the experiment. Treatments were rep-
licated thrice. Data were collected for growth parameters and yield contributing traits. It was observed that
source of nitrogen has no significant difference on growth or yield while the N placement timing significantly
affects these traits. Results showed that most efficient N placement timing is split dose of fertilizer at T3 (½
at 1st irrigation and ½ at flowering) for either urea or CAN fertilizer.
Received | December 16, 2017; Accepted | August 26, 2018; Published | September 27, 2018
*Correspondence | Malik Muhammad Yousaf, Arid Zone Research Institute, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Bahawalpur,
Pakistan; Email: malikparc@gmail.com
Citation | Yousaf, M.M., M. Zeshan, M. Hussain, M.M. Raza, M.J. Shah, B. Ahmed and S.H. Shah. 2018. Effect of Source and Placement
Timings of Nitrogen Fertilizers on Growth and Yield of Raya (Brassica juncea L.). Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Research, 31(3): 285-290.
DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.pjar/2018/31.3.285.290
Keywords | Nitrogen, Yield, Placement timing, Growth, Sources

Introduction biochemical and physiological reactions in plant me-

tabolism (Balasubramaniyan and Palaniappan, 2001).

T here is an acute shortage of edible oil in Pakistan

and has become the third largest importer of the
edible oil in world. Seventy-five percent of total ed-
Nitrogen deficiency results reduction in dry matter,
crude protein and grain yield (Ashiono et al., 2005).
Continuous supply of N is mandatory for good crop
ible oil consumption depends on import (Ali et al., stand and yield and oil contents with better quality.
2017). This import costs Rs. 284.546 billion (US$ 2.710
billion) during the year Rs. 2015-16. Winter rapeseed Nitrogen availability for optimum plant growth and
has become a crop of major agro-economic impor- development is very low in Pakistani soils due to low
tance for edible oil after cottonseed with an annual organic matter and high temperature (Saleem et al.,
production of 0.202 million tons (GOP, 2017). Rape- 2009). So, a crop without application of nitrogenous
seed and mustards are rich source of oil and contains fertilizer is quite impossible to grow well (Tisdale
44–46% good quality oil. Nitrogen (N), being an in- et al., 1990) but its effects on environment and high
tegral part of proteins (Saleem et al., 2009) plays im- cost have drawn the attention of scientists to improve
portant role in photosynthesis and several enzymatic its efficiency (Lehrsch et al., 2000). Improvement in
September 2018 | Volume 31 | Issue 3 | Page 285
 Effect of source and placement timings of N fertilisers on raya
nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is a major way to re- domized complete block design in three replications.
duce nitrogen losses and its accumulation in plants Two factors; sources of nitrogen (i.e. urea and calcium
(Moghaddam et al., 2007). High nitrogen fertilizer ammonium nitrate (CAN)) and three placement tim-
application rates decrease NUE and plant uptake due ings for each source (i.e. ½ at rauni + ½ at flowering
to its increased losses (Sowers et al., 1994). Identifica- (T1), ½ at sowing + ½ at flowering (T2), ½ at 1st irri-
tion and exploitation of strategies that enhance NUE gation and ½ at flowering (T3) were taken. Net plot
is the need of hour to sustain crop productivity and size was 3×5 m. Each plot had four rows and row to
environment protection. row distance was 75 cm whereas the row length was
kept as 5 meters. Crop was sown in the third week
Sources and time of application are considered as the of November, 2015 with the help of single row hand
factors affecting NUE and pathways of nitrogen loss drill. Seed was sown at the rate of 6 kg ha-1. Plant to
from soil-plant system (Raun and Johnson, 1999). plant distance was maintained 22.5 cm and surplus
Right source of nitrogen fertilizer is more impor- plants were thinned out at four leaf stage. A fertilizer
tant for yield than its amount (Larson and Oldham, dose of 60 kg phosphorus per ha was applied to all
2010). Ammonium, nitrate and urea are the predom- treatments and N were applied at the rate of 86 kg N
inant forms of nitrogen which are present in nitrogen per ha. Whole dose of P2O5 was applied at the time
fertilizer (Wood et al., 2010). Urea has high nitrogen of sowing from the source of single supper phosphate
contents (45-46%), low cost, and is rapidly convert- (SSP) while recommended dose of nitrogen was ap-
ed into available form for plant uptake (Weiss et al., plied as per treatment. All other agronomic practices
2009). An alternative of urea is calcium ammonium like weeding and irrigations were kept normal and
nitrate (CAN) which is commercially developed to uniform for all treatments.
reduce nitrogen volatilization losses (Wood et al.,
2010). CAN is also a better source as nitrogen fer- Table 1: Soli Analysis of Experimental Site.
tilizer as it contains nitrogen in both ammonium Soil pH 8.1
and nitrate forms which results in high plant uptake EC 1.69 ds/m
(Weiss et al., 2009). Timing of fertilizer application Organic Matter 0.80 %
is a low cost strategy to reduce nutrient losses (Gehl Phosphorus 6.4 ppm
et al., 2005). Application of nitrogen fertilizer at the
Potassium 267 ppm
time when it is needed by the crop is most logical
Soil Saturation 52 %
approach for improving nitrogen use efficiency (Lar-
Soil Texture Clay-Loam Soil
son and Oldham, 2010). Split application of nitrogen
fertilizer at the time of crop need reduces nitrogen
losses and improves the nutrient use efficiency of crop Crop was harvested at physiological maturity 3rd week
plants (Debele et al., 1994). Split application of nitro- of March in 2016. Observations of different growth
gen is more important because it provides nitrogen parameters e.g. plant height (cm), number of silique
at different growth stages during crop development per plant, silique length (cm), number of seeds per
when it is required to plant for better NUE (Grant et silique and number of branches per plant, were taken
al., 2012; Tadesse et al., 2013; Ma et al., 2015). from ten randomly selected plants from each treat-
ment and used for calculating their means. 1000-seed
Keeping in view the all above findings, this study was weight was worked out by calculating the weight of
conducted to investigate the efficacy of time and source 100 seeds and multiplied with ten of 10 samples se-
of applied nitrogen on NUE and growth and yield of raya. lected randomly from seed produce of each plot and
their means were calculated. For seed yield all the
Materials and Methods plants were taken from each plot, siliques were sep-
arated, opened, shelled and weight was calculated in
Present study was conducted at the experimental Kilograms per hectare. Treatment means were com-
farm of Arid Zone Research Institute Bahawalpur pared by using the least significant difference (LSD)
during winter season 2015-2016. Soil sample were test at 5% level of significance on ha-1 basis (Steel and
taken from 15 to 30 cm depth and soil analysis was Dickey, 1997) and correlation coefficients were deter-
carried out before the experiment (Table 1). Experi- mined by using computer software Statistix 8.1.
ment was laid out in factorial arrangement with ran-
September 2018 | Volume 31 | Issue 3 | Page 286
 Effect of source and placement timings of N fertilisers on raya
Table 2: Effect of source of N (Urea and Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN)) and time of application (½ at rauni + ½
at flowering (T1), ½ at sowing + ½ at flowering (T2), ½ at 1st irrigation and ½ at flowering (T3)) on Plant Height,
Branches per Plant, Seliques per Plant, Selique Length, Seeds per Selique, 1000 Seed Weight and Total Seed Yield.
Source Time of Appli- Plant Height Branches Seliques per Selique Seeds per 1000-Seed Seed Yield
cation (cm) per Plant Plant Length (cm) Selique Weight (g) (kg/ha)
Urea
T1 146.07D 3.30C 69.10D 3.977A 8.80B 4.13BC 1245.4B
T2 156.07BCD 4.00B 88.27B 4.50A 9.60AB 4.33ABC 1377.7A
T3 167.93 A
5.20 A
95.67A
4.83A
11.37 A
4.83A
1401.0A
CAN
T1 146.80CD 3.80BC 67.30D 4.73A 9.07B 3.97BC 1349.1A
T2 158.07ABC 4.03B 82.50C 3.97A 9.27B 3.67C 1352.1A
T3 167.13AB 4.80A 90.77AB 4.43A 10.57AB 4.50AB 1391.3A
Note: Any two means not sharing a letter in common differ significantly at P ≤ 0.05

Table 3: Mean squares from analysis of variances for plant height, branches per plant, selique per plant, selique length,
seeds per selique, 1000 seed weight and seed yield.
Source of Vari- Plant Height Branches Seliques per Selique Length Seeds per 1000 Seed Seed Yield
ation (cm) per Plant Plant (cm) Selique Weight (kg/ha)
Source 1.869NS 0.0089NS 77.709** 0.0139NS 0.3756 NS 0.6805 NS 2349.1 NS
Time 667.82** 3.2872** 982.46** 0.2539 NS 6.7356* 0.8272* 15337.7*
Source*Time 2.949NS 0.3039 NS 6.52 NS 0.7672 NS 0.4289NS 0.0972NS 7459.3 NS
Error 41.731 0.1205 7.42 0.3336 1.0089 0.1412 3008.1
CV 4.11 8.29 3.31 13.11 10.27 8.87 4.05

* Correlation is significant at 0.05 level; ** Correlation is highly significant at 0.01 level; NS Correlation is non-significant at 0.05 level.

Table 4: Correlation (r) coefficients among yield contributing traits of Brassica.

  PH BPP SPP SL SPS SW YLD
PH 1            
BPP 0.7817** 1          
SPP 0.7877** 0.7766** 1        
SL 0.0626NS 0.3788NS 0.2NS 1      
SPS 0.6359** 0.6287** 0.6467** 0.1496NS 1    
SW 0.2874 NS
0.5173* 0.5056* 0.2816 NS
0.5784* 1  
YLD 0.3810 NS
0.4826* 0.6011** 0.3050 NS
0.3480 NS
0.11123 NS
1

* Correlation is significant at 0.05 level; ** Correlation is highly significant at 0.01 level; NS Correlation is non-significant at 0.05 level.

Results and Discussion ering). This could be due to the availability of nitro-
gen at the right time of growth. However, lowest crop
Nitrogen is an important component of plant metab- height (146.07 cm for urea and 146.80 for CAN) was
olism. Nitrogen application affects almost all growth observed at harvest in case of T1 (½ at rauni + ½ at
parameters especially plants height. There was a sig- flowering). Our results are at par with the results of
nificant difference in the crop height when nitrogen other related studies (Cheema et al., 2001; Chen et
fertilizer was applied in splits at different timing as al., 2004; Hassan et al., 2010).
shown in Table 2, while the sources of nitrogen not
significantly affected crop height. Maximum crop Number of branches per plant is an important trait
height (167.93 cm for urea and 167.13 cm for CAN) that directly contributes in total yield. Different ni-
was observed at T3 (½ at 1st irrigation + ½ at flow- trogen placement times showed significant difference
September 2018 | Volume 31 | Issue 3 | Page 287
 Effect of source and placement timings of N fertilisers on raya
in the branches per plant when source of nitrogen T3 (½ at 1st irrigation + ½ at flowering). Least 1000-
fertilizer was either urea or CAN. Maximum number seed weight was observed when CAN was applied at
branches were observed (5.20 for urea and 4.80 for T2 (½ at sowing + ½ at flowering). These results were
CAN fertilizer) when applied in split doses at (½ at supported by the work of Cheema et al., 2001 and
1st irrigation + ½ at flowering) as shown in Table 2, Muhammad et al., 2007.
while lowest branches per plant (3.43) was observed
when Urea was applied in case of (½ at rauni + ½ at There was a significant difference in the crop yield
flowering). This could be due to the loss of nitrogen when Urea fertilizer was applied under different ni-
by leaching down and unavailability at the right stage trogen placement times. It was maximum (1401.0
of the crop. No significant difference was observed for tons/ha) when urea fertilizer was applied under split
sources of nitrogen. These results are supported by the application at T3 (½ at first irrigation + ½ at flower-
work of Cheema et al. (2001) and Chen et al. (2004). ing). While lowest crop yield (1245.4 tons/ha) was
observed when Urea was applied in case of T1 (½ at
There was a significant difference in the number of rauni + ½ at flowering). While no significant effect of
siliques per plant when nitrogen fertilizer was applied CAN fertilizer was observed under different place-
under different placement times as shown in Table ment timing. These results are in line with the work of
2. Source of nitrogen were not significantly affecting Cheema et al. (2001); Chen et al. (2004); Muhammad
this trait. Number of siliques were maximum (95.67) et al. (2007); Hassan et al. (2010) and Tariq et al. (2013).
when urea fertilizer was applied in at T3 (½ at 1st ir-
rigation + ½ at flowering) while, lowest siliques per Correlation coefficient between growth and yield
plant (67.30) were observed when CAN was applied contributing traits were calculated (Table 4). It was
in T1 (½ at rauni + ½ at flowering). Following results observed that number of branches per plant and sel-
are supported in other studies as well (Cheema et al., ique per plant showed significantly positive correla-
2001; Muhammad et al., 2007). tion with yield. While the other parameters like plant
hight and seed weight showed positive correlation
There was no significant difference in the silique but not significantly different for yield increase.
length when nitrogen fertilizer was applied in splits
either from urea or CAN as shown in Table 2. It was Conclusions
maximum (4.83 cm) when fertilizers were applied in
split (½ at sowing + ½ at flowering). Same results were From the all above findings both of the N source
observed in the work of Cheema et al. (2001) and were proved equally efficient for seed yield and many
Chen et al. (2004) which are at par with our fidings. growth parameters. However, N placement timing
significantly effects the yield and other growth traits.
Number of seeds per silique is an important agronom- It was observed that the most efficient timing of ni-
ic trait. It is not significantly affected when different trogen placement is when half of the amount is ap-
Nitrogen sources were used, while various applica- plied at 1st irrigation and ½ at flowering for raya.
tion timing of these fertilizers affected the number of
seeds per silique. Maximum number of seeds per siliq- Author’s contributions
ue (11.37 for urea and 10.57 for CAN) was observed
when fertilizers were applied at various time of place- M.M. Yousaf conceived the idea and provide techni-
ment at T3 (½ at 1st irrigation + ½ at flowering). These cal support in this study. M. Hussain, M.J. Shah and
results are different from the results of Öztürk (2010) B. Ahmad planned and executed the experiment in
who found non-significant difference in application field. M.M. Raza helped in data collection and anal-
time. While our results were supported by the work of ysis. M. Zeshan collected the data, done statistical
Cheema et al. (2001) and Muhammad et al. (2007). analysis and wrote the manuscript.

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