MD. GOLAM SORWAR1, NAZRUL ISLAM2, H. M. MONIRUZZMAN3 and MD. TAHMIDUR RAHMAN4*
1Assistant Professor, Alamdanga Degree College, Alamdanga, Chuadanga, 2Professor, Department of Agronomy, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensing, 3Department of Agricultural Extension, Khamarbari, Farmget, Dhaka and 4Assistant Professor, Faculty of Agriculture, First Capital University of Bangladesh, Chuadanga, Bangladesh. *Corresponding authors email: tahmidur80@gmail.com.
ABSTRACT
An experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Field Laboratory of Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh during the period from November 2004 to March 2005 to assessing the influence of irrigation, row spacing and crust-breaking on yield and yield attributes of wheat cv. Kanchan. The treatments comprised four levels of irrigation, two levels of row spacing and three levels of crust-breaking. There were 24 treatment combinations in the experiment and a split plot design with three replications was followed. Results showed that almost all the characters were significantly influenced by the levels of irrigation. Plant height increased up to three irrigations but above two irrigations, the values were statistically identical. Panicle length followed the same trend of plant height. Fertile tillers/m2, spikelets/ear, straw yield and biological yield significantly responded up to one irrigation and no difference was observed with further increase in the levels of irrigation. Grain yield increased linearly due to irrigation and the increases obtained were 38, 46 and 56% from one, two and three irrigations, respectively compared to the control. The differences for grain yield between control and one irrigation, control and two irrigations and one and three irrigations were significant. Crust-breaking significantly influenced fertile tillers/m2, spikelets/ear, sterile spikelets/ear, grains/ear, 1000-grain weight, grain yield, straw yield, biological yield and harvest index. Most of the characters increased significantly with one crust-breaking. Crust-breaking reduced sterile spikelets/ear and thus improved grain filling in the crop. Normal row spacing and skipped row were similar regarding the yield performance of wheat, showing that the adequate space left – over with the plots of skipped rows can easily allow soil related intercultural operations like crust – breaking within the crop. However, the interaction effects among treatments were not of worth-mentioning since there was no significant interaction obtained for grain and straw yields.
Keywords: Irrigation, Row spacing and Crust breaking.