Comparison of Conventional and Encapsulated Urea on Growth and Yield of Wheat (triticum aestivum l.)

Abstract

Nitrogen(N) is necessary sustenance for healthy plant growth and its yield. Urea is aprimary source of N in solid fertilizers. The hydrolysis rate of ureaaccelerates as it stays in surface application. However, Controlled-ReleaseFertilizers (CRF) has proven to reduce N losses, thereby increasing fertilizerefficiency. Wheat is the leading food grain of Pakistan occupying the largestarea under single crop. It accounts for 9.6 percent of the value added inagriculture and 1.9 percent GDP. However, the production is recorded less ascompared to previous years due to imbalance fertilizer application practices.The recommended doses of fertilizers may vary time to time for wheat. Thisstudy is therefore, planned to evaluate the method and appropriate rate of Nfor wheat, based on these specific objectives: 1) to evaluate an appropriatemethod and dose of N application for wheat and 2) to find out the effect ofdifferent N applications on growth and yield of wheat. In this regard, a fieldexperiment was conducted at Wheat Section, Agriculture Research InstituteTandojam. There were 5 treatments examined on one variety (TD1) of wheat withthree replications. The encapsulated urea was prepared manually in thelaboratory of Department of Soil Science, Sindh Agriculture UniversityTandojam. Results revealed that wheat yield was markedly influenced byencapsulated urea as compared to surface applied urea. Maximum yield (40.5 %increment over control) was observed from encapsulated urea (N 140 kg ha-1).However, the difference between the rates of N was non-significant (p >0.05).