Effects of Thiamine Hydrochloride on plant growth and nutrient uptake of mustard
Azahar Sajjad*, Syed Saad and Akil A. Khan
Department of Botany, Gandhi Faiz-e-Aam College (Affiliated to M.J.P. Rohilkhand University, Bareilly), Shahjahanpur-242001 (India) *Corresponding Author E-mail: azharsajjad@rediffmail.com
ABSTRACT
A factorial randomized field experiment was conducted to study the seed soaking effect of different concentrations of thiamine hydrochloride solution on two mustard cultivars. The seeds of mustard (Brassica juncea L. Czern & Coss.) cultivars ‘Rohini’ and ‘Varuna’ were soaked in 0.01, 0.02, 0.03% aqueous solutions of thiamine hydrochloride along with water soaked control. A uniform basal dose of 90kg N, 30kg P and 30kg K/ha were given to soil at the time of sowing in the form of urea, mono calcium super phosphate and muriate of potash respectively. The effect of these treatments was observed on shoot length, dry weight/ plant, leaf area, leaf area index and nitrogen content and its uptake at 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 days after sowing (DAS), crop growth rate, relative growth rate and net assimilation rate at 0-40, 40-60, 60-80, 80-100 and 100-120 days. In general plants rose from 0.03% soaking treatment enhanced values for various parameters studied, whereas in between two tested varieties, ‘Varuna’ performed better. Interaction effect of soaking × variety was found to be non-significant for the most of the characters studied except for the dry weight, CGR and RGR. For dry weight it was significant at 100 and 120 DAS whereas for CGR the interaction effect was significant only between 40-60 DAS period. It was found that values for variety Rohini at water soaked control and 0.03% treatments were significantly different and were at par with 0.01 and 0.02% treatments. Interaction effect of RGR was found to be only significant at final stage, where it was found that variety Varuna at 0.02% treatment gave significantly inferior value to 0.01 and 0.03% treatments, whereas variety Rohini at 0.02% treatment was significantly superior to these two other treatments. In case of nitrogen uptake at all sampling stages, 0.03% thiamine hydrochloride again proved to be the best and gave significantly higher values than water soaked control which were 75.14, 35.5, 41.49, 19.41 and 20.13 percent more at 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 DAS respectively. Though the interaction effect was found to be nonsignificant at all the sampling stages, it was maximum with variety Varuna and 0.03% thiamine solution. In the present study, it has been found that the soaking of mustard seeds (variety Varuna) in 0.03% thiamine hydrochloride solution ensured better growth and nutrient uptake under the local condition.