Abstract
The feasibility of split (soil + foliar) applications of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) and addition of a small quantity of sulfur (S) in the spray was tested for improving performance of rapeseed-mustard genotypes in a factorial randomized field experiment. Three genotypes (two erucic acid free, viz. Brassica napus L. cv. 'Hyola PAC - 401' and Brassica juncea L. Czern. and Coss. cv. 'TERI (0E) M 21-Swarna', and one best performing high yielding Brassica juncea L. cv. 'Rohini' as a check) were grown with four soil (B) plus foliar (F) applications of N, P, and S with uniform basal 30 kg potassium (K) ha
− 1
(K
30
), viz. (i) the optimum soil-applied treatment supplemented with the spray of deionized water (B
N90P30
+ Fw) comprising control, (ii) B
N70P30
+ F
N20
, (iii) B
N70P28
+ F
N20P2
, and (iv) B
N70P28
+ F
N20P2S2
. Soil Plus foliar application of nutrients, particularly B
N70P28
+ F
N20P2S2
, improved their performance with respect to growth characteristics (shoot length plant
− 1
, leaf number plant
− 1
, area leaf
− 1
, leaf area index, fresh weight plant
− 1
, and dry weight plant
− 1
), physico-biochemical parameters (net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, carboxylation efficiency, water use efficiency, carbonic anhydrase activity, leaf NPK content, and N use efficiency), yield attributes (pod number plant
− 1
, seed number pod
− 1
, 1000-seed weight, seed yield ha
− 1
, oil content, and oil yield ha
− 1
), and fatty acid composition in oil of these genotypes. The cultivar 'Hyola PAC-401' performed best particularly with B
N70P28
+ F
N20P2S2
. The improvement in the response of genotypes to the split application of nutrients may be attributed to their ready availability through foliar application.