ENHANCING SUNFLOWER PRODUCTIVITY AND NATIVE PHOSPHORUS LEVEL THROUGH POLYMER-COATED DIAMMONIUM PHOSPHATE

Hira Mustafa; Mukkram Ali Tahir; Noor-us-Sabah; Ghulam Sarwar; Muhammad Zeeshan Manzoor; Muhammad Aftab; Abid Niaz; Aneela Riaz

Present study was performed at Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Sargodha in 2017 to evaluate the eficiency of various commercially available domestic and imported DAP for growth of sunflower. In this experiment six treatments were used; T 1 : Control, T2 : P from conventional DAP, T3 : P from Impregnated DAP, T4 : P from Reduced DAP, T5 : P from Hifa DAP and T6 : P from environmentally smart DAP (polymer coated DAP). The duration of experiment was up to maturity of crop. After the completion of experiment different yield contributing parameter were recorded and analyzed by standard statistical procedures. It was concluded that smart fertilizers were the better source of plant nutrients for better growth and nourishment of sunflower. Applications of all types of DAP performed better in improving sunflower performance in comparison to conventional DAP. However, environmentally smart polymer coated DAP fertilizer performed better for improving plant height (22.25 cm), stem diameter (0.97 cm), head diameter (7.28 cm), fresh weight (35.88 g) and achene diameter (2.79 cm) of sunflower as well as available P concentration (10.92 ppm). In short, environmentally smart polymer coated DAP fertilizer (T6) could be helpful to get maximum sunflower yield.