EFFECT OF CULTURAL PRACTICES ON GROWTH, YIELD, YIELD COMPONENTS AND QUALITATIVE INDICATORS OF COTTON CROP (Gossypium hirsutum L.) at Nuba Mountains

Abstract

A field experiments were carried out under rain-fed area during two consecutive cropping seasons, 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 at the Demonstration Farm of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Dalanj, South Khordofan State - Sudan. the to investigate area of this study the Effects of sowing dates, cultivars and nitrogen fartilizer on growth, yield, yield components, fiber characteristic and oil content of cotton crop (Gossypium hirsutum L.).Two cultivars, Khalifa and Burhan were sown on three sowing dates of 15th July, 25th July and 4th August treated with three nitrogen levels of 0, 60 and 120 kg ha-1. The study was laid out in normal factorial experiment, Randomized Complete Block Design with three replicates. Observations for growth attributes; such as plant height , leaves of number /plant, stem diameter, number of branches, days to 50% flowering, days to 100% flowering, number of non productive and productive branches, leaf area index and yield parameters, number of bolls/ plant, cotton seed yield (kg N ha1-), yield of lint kg/ha,yield of seed kg/ha, ginning out turn (%), final yield of lint kg/ha, final seed kg/ha, fiber qualities, such as length , fineness, strength, elongation and oil content(%). The data were analyzed, using the statistic (8) software, which showed that both the cultivars with early sowing produced higher growth and yield as compared to the late sowing date. Moreover, the nitrogen response was consistent across sowing dates and cultivar for all data collected. Nitrogen application (120 kg N ha-1)in early planted cotton gave the highest number of bolls, cottonseed yield, oil content (%) and best fiber qualities. It could be concluded that the period from the early to mid of July can be considered as the optimum sowing date and nitrogen application 120 kg N ha-1 doses, this optimum dose for cotton yield of the )Khalifa – cultivar( at South Kordofan State –Sudan.