Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

INFLUENCE OF PLANT GROWTH REGULATORS ON BIOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS AND YIELD OF TRANSGENIC BT COTTON HYBRIDS

Dinesh P. Nawalkar, V. Kumar, Y.G. Ban and A.V. Narwade

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in kharif 2011-12 at Main Cotton Research Station, N.A.U., Surat to study the influence of plant growth regulators on biochemical parameters and seed cotton yield of cotton hybrids. The results revealed that application of Ethylene 45 ppm at squaring stage with Maleic hydrazide (MH) 500 ppm at 85 DAS significantly increased chlorophyll content, reducing sugars, stalk yield (428.7 g/plant) and seed cotton yield (177.6 g/plant). Application of Ethylene alone recorded significantly higher reducing sugars and seed cotton yield over untreated control. MH application alone also recorded higher chlorophyll, reducing sugars at late stage, biomass and seed cotton yield. Amongst the hybrids, Vikram 5 (BG-II) had highest chlorophyll content, reducing sugars, stalk yield (420.8 g/plant) and seed cotton yield (170.9 g/ plant).