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Authors

Dil Baugh Muhammad*, Muhammad Naveed Afzal*, Muhammad Tariq* and Zahid Iqbal Anjum**

*Agronomy Section, Central Cotton Research Institute, Multan, Pakistan

** Cytogenetic Section, Central Cotton Research Institute, Multan, Pakistan

Abstract

The transgenic cotton cultivars require higher potassium and its deficiency during peak bloom and boll setting period adversely affects the yield potential. The two years field experiments were conducted at Central Cotton Research Institute, Multan to investigate the potassium requirement of transgenic cotton. In experiment-I, three potassium doses

i.e. 0, 100 and 200 kg K2O ha-1  were applied at sowing and splitted into

two equal splits of 100 at pre-plant and 45 DAS and four equal splits of 200 at pre-plant, 30, 45 and 60 DAS were tested. While in experiment-II, the impact of four foliar sprays of 2% K2O was evaluated in combination with pre-plant application of 0, 100 and 200 K2O ha-1 for seed cotton yield and yield components. The results revealed that all the potassium levels produced higher seed cotton yield and plant biomass over control. However, split application of potassium irrespective of potassium level was most promising over full pre-plant application for plant height, total fruit production, no. of bolls, boll weight, seed cotton yield and plant biomass. Furthermore, it was also observed that pre-plant application of 200 kg K2O ha-1  along with four foliar sprays of 2% K2O produced the highest figures for plant structure, yield components and seed cotton yield over 0 and 100 kg K2O ha-1. Therefore, it is recommended  that cotton must be fertilized with four splits of 200 kg ha-1 over pre-plant application and four foliar sprays of 2%  K2O can  further increase  the profit margin from pre-plant potassium application.

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