Yield and yield contributing characters of spinach as influenced by nitrogen and multiple harvesting

Abstract

Abstract : An experiment was conducted at the Field Laboratory of Department of Horticulture, BSMRAU to study the yield and other yield contributing characters of spinach at different nitrogen doses and harvesting frequencies. Four nitrogen doses viz. 50 kg/ha (Nj), 100 kg/ha (NJ, 150 kg/ha (N3) & 200 kg/ha (N4) along with control (N0) and three harvesting - single (Hj), double (H2) and triple (H3) were used as treatments in the trial. The result revealed that harvesting frequencies and nitrogen doses differed significantly in all the parameters studied. Among the harvesting frequencies, highest leaf number/plant (33.40), leaf length (18.55 cm), leaf width (12.00 cm) and plant height (36.52 cm) were recorded in single harvest. Triple harvest performed lowest in all parameters in an average but the total of all the parameters were highest in triple harvest. Nitrogen dose N3 produced more leaves/plant (36.06), leaf length (17.01 cm), leaf width (11.16 cm) and plant height (35.06 cm). Total yield of spinach was enhanced by harvesting frequencies. The highest yield (37.31 t/ha) was produced by triple harvest followed by double (31.01 t/ha) and single harvest (21.64 t/ha). The highest total yield (40.14 t/ha) was obtained from the nitrogen dose 200 kg/ha (N4).The highest yield performance (52.90 t/ha) was recorded in triple harvest and 200 kg N/ha (N4H3). The combination of single harvest and control (no nitrogen) yielded the lowest (13.43 t/ha).