Effect of planting time and fertilizer dose on growth, yield and quality of bitter gourd grown under polyhouse and net house conditions Maragal S.Y., Singh A.K.1, Behera T.K.*, Munshi A.D., Dash Sukanta2, Pachauri N. Division of Vegetable Science, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012 1Centre for Protected Cultivation Technology, ICAR-IARI 2ICAR-IASRI, New Delhi *Corresponding author's E-mail: tusar@rediffmail.com
Online published on 31 October, 2018. Abstract An experiment was conducted to study the effect of planting time and fertilizer dose on growth, yield and quality of bitter gourd var. Pusa Rasdar under two different protected structures (polyhouse and nethouse). The experiment was laid out in the factorial randomized block design with three replications. The treatments were formulated with four fertigation levels (15: 7: 16, 20: 12: 21, 25: 17: 26 and 30: 22: 31 kg NPKha−1) and three date of plantings (15th August, 1st September and 15th September). Among the treatments combination, 15th August sowing with 30: 22: 31 kg NPKha−1 shown highest interaction effect for the number of fruits per plant (11.47), fruit weight (235.26 g), yield per plant (2697.7 g), yield per 1000m2 (107.91 q) under nethouse. Whereas, 15th August planting with 30: 22: 31 kg NPKha−1 recorded highest for nitrogen (236.10 mg/100g), phosphorus (41.00 mg/100g), potassium (346.33 mg/100g), calcium (19.33 mg/100g), iron (0.32 mg/100g), zinc (0.64 mg/100g) and manganese (0.42 mg/100g) content of bitter gourd fruit grown under polyhouse. Hence, cultivation of bitter gourd var. Pusa Rasdar at 15th August planting with application of 30: 22: 31 kg NPKha−1 under the insect-proof nethouse found better for the successful plant growth, yield and quality. Top Keywords Momordica charantia, protected structures, fertigation, mineral content. Top |