GROWTH AND GREEN PODS YIELD OF OKRA PLANTS AS INFLUENCED BY PLANT SPACING AND APICAL BUD PINCHING

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Hort. Dept., Fac. Agric., Zagazig Univ., Egypt

Abstract

The present work was carried out in Vegetable Private Farm at Al-Mothalath Village, Abou- Hamad Distrect, Sharkia Governorate during two successive summer seasons of 2014 and 2015, to study the effect of plant spacing (20, 30, 40 and 50 cm) and apical bud pinching (ABP) stages (ABP at the 4th node, the 6th node, 8th node and without ABP) on growth and productivity of okra cv Balady Ahmar under sand loam soil conditions and using surface irrigation system. Obtained results could be summarized as follow: Plant height and total green pods yield/fad., increased with the closest plant spacing (20 cm), whereas number of branches/ plant and leaf area, dry weight of leaves and total dry weight/plant, number of green pods/plant and green pod yield/ plant were increased with the widest plant spacing (50 cm). Number of leaves/ plant was increased with 40 cm plant spacing. The longest plants were recorded with the control treatment (without ABP), whereas ABP at the 4th node increased number of leaves/plant, dry weight of leaves and total dry weight/ plant and ABP at the 8th node increased number of branches/plant. On the other side, apical bud pinching at the 6th node (ABP at 35 days after seed sowing) increased number of green pods yield/plant, green pod yield/plant and total green pod yield/faddan. The interaction between plant spacing at 30 cm and ABP at the 6th node, increased number of leaves/plant, whereas the interaction between plant spacing at 50 cm and ABP at the 6th node increased number of branches / plant, dry weight of leaves and total dry weight/ plant, number of green pods / plant, green pod yield / plant in both seasons. The narrow plant spacing (20 cm) and ABP at the 6th node increased total green pod yield/faddan.

Keywords