INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZER LEVELS ON GROWTH AND YIELD OF QUINOA (Chenopodium quinoa)

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Agriculture Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE (M.S.) IN AGRONOMY Semester: January- June, 2018

An experiment was conducted at the Agronomy research field, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka from November, 2017 to January, 2018 to study the performance of two different varieties of quinoa as influenced by different fertilizer levels. The treatments were included two factors in this study as, Factor A: Variety (2) viz. Titicaca (V 1 ) and Vikinga (V 2 ) and Factor B: fertilizer levels (7); F 1 (No fertilizer), F 2 (120kg N ha -1 ), F 3 (50 kg P ha -1 ), F 4 (50kg K ha (120-50 kg NP ha -1 ), F 6 (120-50 kg NK ha -1 ), F 7 (120-50-50 kg NPK ha ). The experiment was laid out in RCBD (factorial) design with three replications. Data on different growth parameters, yield attributes and yield were significantly varied for different parameters. The experimental results indicate that seed yield of quinoa was significantly influenced by the application of different fertilizer levels. The higher plant height at harvest (23.34cm), higher inflorescence length (14.77cm), higher straw weight plant -1 (2.54g), higher 1000 seed weight (2.55g), higher seed weight (383.66 kg ha -1 ), higher straw weight (582.65kg ha ) was found by V 2 . The highest seed yield (682.07 kg ha which was statistically similar with V 2 F 6 -1 -1 -1 ) was obtained from V 2 .The lowest seed yield (73.15 kg ha ) was obtained from V 1 F 3 which was statistically similar to V 1 . Therefore, present study suggest that Vikinga with 120-50-50 NPK Kg ha or 120-50 kg NK ha -1 is the most compatible in respect of yield advantage and economic gain. The same interaction also showed higher yield for Titicaca also though it was lower compared to that at Vikinga variety. F 5 -1 ), F 5 and V 1 -1 F 7 -1 F 1