Growth and Yield of Sweetcorn as Influenced by Zinc Fertilization

In order to investigate the effect of zinc nutrition on growth, yield, and quality parameters of sweetcorn, a field experiment comprising of nine treatments with three replications was carried out in Randomised Block Design during Kharif, season 2020 on sandy clay soils of Agricultural College Farm, Bapatla. The analysis of variance showed a significant effect of zinc application on growth and yield parameters. The detailed results of the study showed that among the various zinc fortification treatments, RDF + Zn EDTA @ 10 kg ha^-1 (Soil) + Nano ZnO @ 250 ppm at 20 & 40 DAS (Foliar spray) registered superior plant growth characters like plant height at harvest (214.4 cm) leaf area index at harvest (2.94) and dry matter accumulation at harvest (9903 kg ha^-1). The yield parameters like no. of seed rows per cob (16.84), no. of seeds per row (32.57), green cob yield (12,638 kg ha^-1), and green fodder yield (19,674 kg ha^-1) were maximum with RDF + Zn EDTA @ 10 kg ha^-1 (Soil) + Nano ZnO @ 250 ppm at 20 & 40 DAS (Foliar spray) which was significantly superior over rest of the treatments whereas lower growth and yield was noticed with RDF alone.

• Soil application of Zn EDTA (10 kg ha^-1) along with the two foliar sprays of nano zinc (250 ppm) at 20 and 40 DAS was found to be more effective in improving growth, yield attributes, cob yield of sweetcorn.