Keywords

Yield; Sweet Sorghum; Boron; Concentration; Micronutrient

Introduction

There are various factors in the nature that have direct or indirect influence on the crop yield. These factors include water deficit, mineral imbalance, and non-availability of macro or micro nutrients in soil, environmental factors along with this excess availability or use of a particular or more macro/ micro fertilizers and or water in the crop field. The amount of soil moisture available to plants in arid and semiarid regions is also one of the major limiting factors for crop yield.

Boron is one of the microelements required for healthy crop growth and development of reproductive tissues. It is required in very small amount. However, the deficiency and excess use of boron may affect crop growth. Boron is important micronutrient which plays role in pollen germination and pollen tube formation which leads to improve yield [1]. As boron is important micronutrient required for plant growth and yield [2] which play vital function in cell wall formation, nitrogen fixation, nucleic acid, membrane stability, sugar transport, carbohydrate and Indol Acetic Acid metabolism. Due to all these roles, boron leads to an increase in plant height and production [3,4].

Sorghum bicolor is an important dry land annual cereal crop grown in India. In semiarid tropics when other plants fail to survive, sweet Sorghum can grow successfully. Sweet Sorghum is said to be valued for 4-F’s. These 4-F’s are Food, Feed, Fuel and Fertilizer. It can produce along with grains, a sugary juice that is useful to produce ethanol, jaggery, syrup and flour. As sweet Sorghum produces food as well as fuel so it can help to meet the countries fuel needs without compromising our food supply.

Materials and Methods

The sweet Sorghum variety RSSV-9 and Madhura were grown in individual pots which were treated with 10 ppm, 50 ppm and 100 ppm boron along with one pot untreated i.e. 0 ppm named as control. These treatments were given at 15 days old seedlings and the treatment was repeated at 40 days and 70 days old plant after sowing [Figure 1]. At maturity, plants from each treatment and control were harvested and various components namely length of ear-head, weight of 100 grains, biological yield, harvest index, total yield were calculated.

Figure 1: Effect of boron on grain yield of sweet Sorghum var. RSSV-9 and Madhura.

The plant height was measured simply by adding root length and shoot length together. Plant height along with root and shoot, length was expressed in cm. Average number of leaves per plant was determined by counting total number of leaves developed on selected plants from the pots. Length of panicle and number of grains were measured from selected ear-heads.

Result and Discussion

The effect of soil application of different boron concentrations on yield and different yield parameters like length of earhead, number of grains per panicle, weight of 100 grains, grain yield, biological yield and harvest index is shown in table 1. In both the varieties studied under this investigation shows remarkable increase in yield and yield parameters. The lower doses of boron like 10 and 50 ppm positively influenced the yield parameters and yield components in both the varieties under investigation. Madhura shows promising results with respect to all parameters like number of grains, weight of 100 seeds, grain yield, biological yield and harvest index with 50 ppm boron treatment. Similar response was also noticed with c. v. RSSV-9. But higher dose of 100 ppm boron reported to decrease in biological yield in both varieties.

Table 1: Effect of different boron concentrations on yield and yield parameters of sweet Sorghumcultivars.

There are various reports of effect of boron on yield and yield components. A study of boron requirement on sugarbeet plant by Hellal et al. [5] shows increased root and shoot length due to boron at 50 ppm concentration when compared with other non-boron treatments which ultimately increases total height of the plant. Similar results were obtained in the present investigation where total height was increased due to 50 ppm boron treatment. According to Moniruzzaman et al. [6] significant increase in number of leaves per plant, length and width of highest leaf in broccoli plant treated with 1.5 kg boron ha^-1. Number of leaves is increased in onion when plant treated with 0.1 % to 0.5 % of boron [7,8]. Our results are showing increased leaf number due to all the boron treatments. Mehdi et al. [9] in an experiment on rice under saline sodic soil found that residual boron increased plant height, straw yield, number of tillers and panicles per plant.

Singh et al. [10] revealed that in cauliflower increased levels of boron from 1.0 kg ha^-1 to 2.5 kg ha^-1 shows increase in all the yield parameters but boron at 3.0 kg ha^-1 was not superior to control. Higher grain weight and more grains per panicle due to boron application in rice is reported by Rehman et al. [11]. He was of the opinion that increased stimulatory effect might be due to involvement of boron in reproductive growth as boron improves the panicle fertility[12,13] studied wheat plant and reported that foliar and soil application of boron resulted in increased number of grains per spike. Increased panicle length in rice due to boron application was depicted by Ahmad [14]. Report of Sathya et al. [15] suggests that fertilizer application of boron at 20 kg as borax ha^-1 shows better yield. Recently Muthanna et al. [16] reported that application of boron along with sulphur increases yield of potato plant. Mahadule and Sale [17] reported foliar application of boron on legumes improved yield and yield parameters. While the results of Hossain [18] indicated that yield and yield attributes of mustard were significantly influenced by boron application. Our findings in the present investigation were in correlation with the previous reports of various workers [19].

Conclusion

The enhancement in total height, diameter of stem, number of nodes and leaves per plant and number of grains per plant ultimately increases biological yield and harvest index of the sweet Sorghum var. RSSV-9 and Madhura showing that boron application is required for improvising yield and yield parameters. These results are due to role of boron in reproductive growth as well as in panicle fertility, carbohydrate translocation which helped in better seed or fruit setting. Number of grains is found more when plants are applied with boron through soil. Our findings are showing boron application is required for improvising yield and yield parameters.

References

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